


Tweens and Satyrs

by HiddenKitty



Series: In which the Dwarves are Satyrs, because Reasons [2]
Category: The Hobbit (Jackson Movies)
Genre: Cultural Differences, M/M, Mating Cycles/In Heat, satyrs
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-22
Updated: 2016-05-12
Packaged: 2018-05-28 09:21:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 21,226
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6323782
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/HiddenKitty/pseuds/HiddenKitty
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It seems they're growing up... note the changed rating!</p><p>--</p><p>Also, a brief note about <a href="http://archiveofourown.org/works/5954422/chapters/13686778">The Brave Soldier and the Princess</a>, aka the piece of fic that started this whole crazy carousel in motion.  It was supposed to be a one-off, and I did only the most cursory research.  Those eagle-eyed Tolkien scholars (and I’m sure there are so many reading this satyr-dwarf/hobbit romantic kidfic au) will have spotted that the hobbits in the opening scene of this series would have been about 12 years younger than Bilbo, who was intended to be in his early-to-mid-teens at that point anyway.  SO I have gone back and re-jigged a few names, largely for my own satisfaction, and I hope no-one will mind.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. A Birthday Party

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> [Pangur_pangur](http://archiveofourown.org/users/pangur_pangur/pseuds/pangur_pangur) continues to be the sweetest Beta-reader EVER. She rocks. :3
> 
> [ETA April 1016] Ruto drew a PLETHORA of riches for this chapter, [including sulky Thorin, crude Thorin, and glowing-angel-from-handsomeness-heaven Thorin, plus Bilbo in various states of besottedness...](http://rutobuka2.tumblr.com/post/142542706344/some-pics-i-drew-for-ahiddenkittys-tweens-and). :D

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> nb: cherry stones are extremely poisonous. Thorin can eat them without harm because he is a satyr, but any human or hobbit readers should definitely not try to do the same. ;)

That ridiculous, childish business with the mistaken marriage was long since behind them now, and though Dwalin might beg to differ, Bilbo felt quietly certain that he could count himself as _one_ of Thorin’s best friends, if perhaps not the only contender for that honour. Barring school days and chores, they spent three-quarters of the year seldom out of each other’s company, and Mama had never raised the least objection. Bilbo suspected she rather enjoyed her son having such an exotic friend. 

It had been last year, or perhaps the one before, that he and Thorin had found a little copse of sweet cherry trees growing on a sandy shoulder of the Water not far from the edge of the woods. With midsummer past the birds and squirrels had eaten most of them, but there were still a few late-ripening fruits left for those who looked carefully. Bilbo had tied knots in the four corners of a handkerchief to make a serviceable bowl, and what with nimble climbing and throwing sticks into the branches, he and Thorin had found a few dozen that had scarcely been pecked at all. 

The two of them lay idly on the shingle, the handkerchief of cherries between them slowly diminishing as they enjoyed their spoils. Every so often Bilbo would spit a cherry-pit into the water, if he could manage it, although more often than not they didn’t quite reach. Thorin meanwhile simply crunched his along with the cherry, as if the hard stones were no more than cobnuts. It was pleasant to simply be quiet, after their efforts, with trees rustling gently overhead and the river running past. The sunshine was warm still, and there were swallows wheeling through the air around Farmer Hogwood’s barn a few fields away, though they were doubtless preparing their migration and would be gone within the month. 

“Thorin,” said Bilbo, after the cherries were all gone and they had lain silent for a while. He wanted to be sure Thorin hadn’t fallen asleep. 

Thorin responded with a grunt, a smear of cherry-flesh on his wispy, sparse beard. Now that it was finally growing in he seemed to get food stuck in it constantly, which seldom failed to make Bilbo smile.

“I suppose it must be coming on for Leaf-Fall,” said Bilbo as casually as he could.

Thorin opened one eye, his arms still folded behind his head, and sniffed the air deliberately. “Not yet.”

“Soon though,” persisted Bilbo. “And then... You know.”

Thorin hummed, closing his eyes once again.

“You’ll be doing whatever it is you do.”

“Yes,” mumbled Thorin.

Bilbo sighed, picking up a stone from beside where they sat and skimming it into the river with venom.

“Which is what, Thorin? What is it you do in Leaf-Fall?”

“Nothing that concerns Hobbits,” said Thorin, frowning without opening his eyes.

“Don’t be so smug! You know I’ll never stop asking.” Bilbo scowled at the river, scrabbling for another stone to fling. They had this conversation every year, and it always ended in bad temper. Bilbo had never liked secrets. “It doesn’t occur to you that I might, actually, want to know for very good reasons. You infuriating clothead.”

Thorin grunted, rolling onto his stomach and flicking a dismissive ear. He pillowed his head on his folded arms and yawned.

“We’re friends,” said Bilbo plaintively. “I shall end up imagining far worse things. Eating live rabbits with your bare hands or something.”

He glanced across, to find Thorin now regarding him with confused suspicion. “Not live,” said Thorin, and Bilbo gaped.

“What, really?”

Thorin glowered at the stones beside his nose. “We do not use fire or blades in Leaf-Fall. So we eat our meat raw from the bone. Do not look at me so.”

“Sorry, sorry,” said Bilbo, scrambling eagerly to lie on his stomach beside Thorin. This was more information than had ever been offered before, and his curiosity was only increased by such tidbits. “Why don’t you use fire and blades, then?”

There was a pause, and then Thorin groaned, as if in defeat. “Our blood runs hotter,” he said, a blush beginning to climb his cheeks, and Bilbo hoped he could ask the right questions before his friend refused to say more. “It would be too dangerous. In Leaf-Fall we fight, we hunt. Those who are bonded will mate. That is why.”

“Oh! So it’s a sort of rut? Like sheep tupping?” asked Bilbo, and Thorin sat up at once, his scowl dark. 

“No,” he said. “It is not like that at all. We are not beasts, Bilbo.”

“Of course not!” agreed Bilbo hastily. “No, no. Although you sort of… I mean, partly… ” He made a weak gesture towards Thorin’s thickly furred hindquarters, his little tufted tail and shiny black hooves.

Thorin leaned in close, looming over Bilbo and evidently furious. He had grown much taller of late, his shoulders broader, and his horns were no longer the little nubs from when they had first met but broad and sharp-tipped, poking out through his long curls and just long enough to begin curling back against his head. Even with smears of cherry in his beard he was intimidating.

“And you, Halfling, you are half a Man, are you not?”

“I’m not half anything!” snapped Bilbo reflexively, and deflated as soon as he’d spoken. “Oh. Sorry. I see what you mean,” he muttered, unable to meet Thorin’s eyes. He felt his face getting hot.

Thorin merely snorted.

“Well, I never did think you were half goat, exactly,” Bilbo offered. It was true, although perhaps that was because he hadn’t ever considered it properly before. Thorin was simply and entirely Thorin. Leaf-Fall did sound a bit like a rut, but Bilbo suspected this was not a good time to argue the point.

Thorin scowled, and turned his glare towards the stream, still babbling merrily past. It didn’t quite reflect the mood as it had a few moments ago, although that was mostly the satyr’s fault, in Bilbo’s opinion. If only he hadn’t been so silly and secretive and quick to take offence. Bilbo picked up his handkerchief from the shingle between them, a little marked with dirt and juice, and fiddled it between his hands, wondering what he ought to do next.

“I really am sorry, Thorin,” said Bilbo at length, sighing. “It’s only that my birthday’s in Halimath, on the 22nd, and I wanted to invite you to the party. I mean I always do and you always say you can’t come, because it’s Leaf-Fall, only I’m turning twenty, you know, and it’ll be quite a big one. My Tweenth, we call it, the start of your tweens, and all that. It’s important to Hobbits. I just really, I just wanted you there. But it doesn’t matter, I won’t ask again.” 

He stuffed the handkerchief in his pocket. The sun was beginning to drop, and it wasn’t as warm as it had been. Perhaps it was time for him to head back home in any case.

“Important to Hobbits?” asked Thorin slowly.

Bilbo shrugged. “To us, yes. It is.”

“I will come,” said Thorin.

A blackbird began singing in the cherry trees behind them.

Bilbo couldn’t quite believe it. “You will?” he asked. Thorin was still looking at the water, brow furrowed with determination. He was pulling on one of his ears, blinking in thought, as if considering the plan.

“I will. This once. If it is important. I will have to sneak away from the caves, and I may not be able to stay for long. But I will come.”

\--

“Mama!” cried Bilbo breathlessly, slamming the door to Bag End behind him with a crash. 

Mama gave a little scream, leaping to her feet, wool and scissors and crochet hook clattering to the floor as she ran into the hall. “Land’s sakes, what’s happened?” she asked, clinging to the Parlour doorframe.

“You have to teach me to knit,” said Bilbo, chest still heaving from his run home, and failed to see why Mama would find that quite so hilarious.

\--

So Bilbo Baggins learned to knit. He chose his wool carefully with Mama from the market, carefully poring over all Goody Ramsden’s dozen baskets of spun yarn as she and Mama shook their heads indulgently over his fussing. At length he settled on two skeins of deep woad blue and undyed grey spun together. It was soft as rabbit’s fur, thick enough to knit up quickly and with the odd lump and bump in it for interesting texture. 

“A nice forgiving yarn,” said Mama approvingly, and insisted on paying for it herself.

They began that night after supper, and it was a much slower process than Bilbo had imagined. Three times he had to rip out all his stitches and begin the thing again. After the third time, he finally conceded that he ought perhaps not to have started with cables for his first finished object, and started over in simple garter stitch. The muffler grew quickly after that. 

Each night before bedtime, Bilbo and his Mama would sit beside the fire as he worked with solemn determination on the task he had set himself. When he dropped a stitch, Mama would lean over to rescue him with her nimble crochet hook, and Father would beam at them both from behind his book or his pipe or his cup of tea, and call them admirably industrious.

By the time Bilbo’s birthday arrived, the muffler was almost complete. Mama had been right, of course, and the wool itself was pretty enough to make the muffler look fancy even in such a simple stitch.

On the morning of his birthday Bilbo sat cross-legged on the floor of his room, knitting as quickly and carefully as he could. He had almost finished last night, but his cast-off had been too tight and the end of the muffler had curled up, and he had almost cried in frustration at seeing his hard work ruined. It had been Mama who patiently undid the cast-off after sending him to bed, and now Bilbo was determined to do better. He had a little while yet before the guests arrived, and he wouldn’t have time to wash it or block it, but he could at least finish the thing.

The weather was still fine enough for the party to be held outside, around the Oak Tree that stood on top of Bagshot Hill. Bilbo could hear through the doorway the sound of furniture being moved. Father was complaining, pointing out that if he had a strapping young tween son then surely he shouldn’t be doing such heavy lifting all by himself, and Mama was shushing at him from the kitchen.

“I’m coming!” called Bilbo. “I’m nearly there!”

He pulled the wool through the last stitch tightly to secure it, and ran to ask Mama for a darning-needle to weave in the end. 

“What, now?” she asked, up to her elbows in scone batter, too busy with her baking to even look up. There was flour in her hair and a smear of butter on her cheek. “Go and help your father with the seating.”

“It’s for a present!” wailed Bilbo.

“I know!” exclaimed Mama, although Bilbo was quite certain he had been careful not to mention that. “There’ll be time enough later, darling, just let’s get the benches out first. I promise, we’ll make sure it’s finished as soon as ever we can.”

“But...” began Bilbo.

“Bilbo Baggins,” said his Mama, and he knew not to argue with that tone.

He grabbed an apple from the fruitbowl as he stomped irritably back through the smial, throwing the muffler down beside him as he sat on his bed. It was no good having a present almost finished when the party guests were bound to start arriving any moment. He knew his mother’s family were always either outrageously late or early. 

Bilbo took a large bite of his apple and chewed it ferociously, and at exactly that moment heard the sound of jingling tack and a voice crying “Woah, Myrtle!”

With a suppressed groan, Bilbo wiped his mouth with the back of his hand and went to the front door. Mama’s sister Mirabella and her husband Gorbadoc were waiting on the step, wearing their broadest smiles and best party outfits. 

“Happy Birthday!” they cried in chorus and Bilbo thanked them politely.

They had come in their new pony-trap, of course, since Uncle Gorbo was inordinately proud of the contraption and would fetch it out at the drop of a hat. Arriving first meant everyone would see it as they came in, and Uncle Gorbo would pretend to be surprised at anyone noticing it, before launching into a long exposition about the superior quality of steel suspension springs and iron-shod wheels. Bilbo was more interested by the pony, Myrtle, though she made him sneeze. She was a gentle beast with a shaggy black mane, and he held out the remainder of his apple on his flat palm for her to eat.

“Good girl,” he said, petting her nose.

“Bilbo, what are you doing! Take that off at once, you’ll get it filthy! You can get changed before the party, you great ninny.” His mother had appeared in the doorway, her face clean although her hair was still wild. 

“Bella dearest, let the poor boy be,” said Aunt Mira, folding her hands placidly over her pregnant stomach. She had three young faunts already, to Bilbo’s recollection, and seemed to have another due every time he saw her. “Ah, don’t you look smart, Bilbo Baggins! The very image of your father. You’ll be turning all the young misses’ heads soon!”

Bilbo grimaced as she ruffled his hair. He had known most of the young misses of Hobbiton since childhood and had no wish to turn the head of any of them. His aunt caught the expression and laughed, her several chins wobbling merrily. 

“Oh, look at that face,” she giggled. “Girls are still deadly poison, are they? Well, that’ll change soon enough now you’re a tween!”

“Now you let him be, Mira,” said Mama at once, patting Bilbo’s shoulder. “Bilbo, please do change before you go and help your father.”

He pretended not to hear her, and sauntered off. There was no way of knowing when Thorin might arrive or how long he might stay, and Bilbo was pleased enough with his birthday outfit to want to show it off to his friend. He had a new blue waistcoat and a snowy linen shirt, still pristine at the cuffs, and Father had taught him how to tie a proper ascot, in sunshine yellow. It was far too nice an outfit not to wear for as long as possible, and really, if a Hobbit couldn’t mess his new waistcoat on his own birthday, when could he?

As a result of that decision he was somewhat warm, and his cuffs distinctly less pristine, by the time the benches and chairs had been laid out beneath the oak tree. As more guests arrived, most were willing to help out, especially once it came time to start bring out food. A good deal more cakes and pies left Bag End’s kitchen than ever arrived upon the tables above it. Still there was plenty, even with the ten aunts and uncles on his mother’s side and four on his father’s, not to mention their spouses, and most had brought several of their children. 

Bilbo leaned out over the little wooden gate, but the stream of arriving guests appeared to have come to a halt. At the top of the hill he could hear laughter and whooping already, and his Grandfather’s loud voice demanding some music. It was past time for him to go up and start helping Mama serve the punch, but he didn’t. He really had hoped Thorin would come too.

He stared along Bagshot Row and tried not to be too disappointed. Perhaps Thorin wasn’t able to sneak away. Perhaps he had tried and been caught, and was even now in disgrace on Bilbo’s behalf. He sighed rather heavily and trudged up the hill to where his guests waited, not really in the mood for a party after all.

\--

Bilbo’s face was beginning to ache from forced smiling as he received yet another tearfully joyous kiss, this time from his Aunt Linda. Her breath was distinctly raw already, though it was barely teatime and the sun was still up. He had noticed several flasks being added to the punch by various relatives, and the stuff was most likely stronger than Gaffer’s homebrew by now.

“Linda, my dear,” called Father, gently guiding his sister away from his son. “I’m sorry to interrupt, but someone’s arrived that I think our Birthday Boy would like to speak to.”

“Thorin!” cried Bilbo in delight, as the satyr appeared from behind Father’s back. 

“Happy Birthday, Bilbo,” said Thorin, smiling shyly. His hair had been brushed until it seemed to shine, and two long braids hung over his shoulders with square stone beads at the ends. Perhaps it wasn’t much, but it was the fanciest Bilbo had ever seen him look, and it was for Bilbo’s party. Somehow that little fact pleased him enormously.

“Good heavens,” muttered Aunt Linda, not very quietly. “Is that the creature Bella warned us about?”

For just a moment Bilbo hoped Thorin hadn’t heard, but he saw the flash of discomfort cross his friend’s face and knew. Of course he had heard. The satyrs’ hearing was probably as heightened as their sense of smell.

He seized Thorin’s elbow and steered him swiftly up the hill towards the tables. “Come on, I’ll get you a glass of punch. I believe it’s got quite a kick.”

Thorin allowed himself to be led through the guests, gazing about himself, mostly over their heads. “Your furniture is all outside,” he said in confusion.

“Oh, yes,” shrugged Bilbo, ladling punch into two glass cups and handing one to Thorin. He took a sniff, and found his eyes watering slightly. There didn’t seem to be much fruit cordial left in the mixture, that much was certain.

“Why?” asked Thorin.

“Well, it’s a nice day, I suppose,” said Bilbo. He squinted up at the sky, which was still clear, although there was certainly a nip in the air. “Mama’s idea. These things usually are.” 

He took a cautious sip, surveying the party-goers over the rim of his drink. Sure enough, there was a great deal of whispering from a crowd that, until a moment ago, had been growing increasingly raucous, and not all of the glances directed towards them were especially friendly. That was too bad, of course, since it was Bilbo’s party and Thorin was Bilbo’s own guest.

“Let’s sit over here,” he suggested, pulling Thorin over towards a bench behind a table, so that at least his furred hind legs and tail would be concealed from rude stares.

“I have never seen so many hobbits,” said Thorin, staring a little himself. He gulped down his punch in one go, and for a moment Bilbo wondered if he might try to eat the glass. 

“Mama invited half the West Farthing,” said Bilbo. “I don’t think she expected them all to come. How did you manage to get away?”

Thorin grinned, pushing his glass away across the table, to Bilbo’s mild relief. “Dwalin caused a distraction for me. He started a fight with Nori and broke two of Amad’s dishes.”

“Good for Dwalin,” laughed Bilbo. “I can’t imagine your Amad took that well!”

“I promised to bring him back some cake,” said Thorin, and frowned suddenly. He reached up to rub the base of his horns as if they itched, and as he did so a waft of something like perfume seemed to strike Bilbo.

“Are you wearing hair oil, Thorin? I can smell something,” he said, without thinking.

Thorin blinked at him. “No,” he said. Then, as only a satyr could, he lifted one arm and dug his long, handsome nose into his own armpit for a deep sniff. He looked up at Bilbo in dismay.

“I should go,” he said. 

“No, now wait, it isn’t a bad smell,” said Bilbo, laughing again. He felt a little giddy. Probably he ought not to have have drunk the punch. “I’m sorry, I should never have mentioned it. How rude of me, pretend I didn’t say anything.” 

Thorin was already getting to his feet, seemingly determined to go already, and Bilbo scrambled up from the bench to stand in his way. 

“You’ve barely arrived,” he said, laying a hand upon his friend’s chest to stop him. Thorin stared down at Bilbo’s hand in horror, which was odd. His chest was bare, certainly, save for an increasing quantity of hair, but it was hardly as if they had never touched one another before.

“You ought at least to take some cake, for Dwalin if not yourself,” insisted Bilbo, withdrawing it with a touch of regret. Thorin’s skin was lovely and warm, and the afternoon was growing increasingly chilly. He grabbed Thorin’s hand instead, and dragged him off to find Mama. 

She was talking to her sisters, Aunt Donna and Aunt Mira, and the three of them were cackling like a plump of ducks. 

“Bilbo, darling,” said Mama in surprise as Bilbo tugged on her arm. “Whatever is the matter?”

“The muffler,” he hissed into her ear. “I need to weave in the end before I can give it to Thorin!” 

“To Thorin?” asked Mama, and burst out laughing again, although Bilbo failed to see what was so funny. Thorin looked suspiciously as if he might make a break for it at any time, and they couldn’t have that.

“Oh, and I thought it was for me!” Mama gasped. “All those hours and hours you took with it. Why, I’ve planned half my winter wardrobe around that shade of blue!”

For a moment Bilbo was stricken with guilt, but that was ridiculous really, for why would he have knitted her present in front of her? Waiting on his dresser were a pair of hairsticks he had carved from a fallen branch of their own oak tree. He could only glare as she tossed back the last of her punch and handed off the empty glass to Aunt Donna.

“Come along then,” she said gaily. The two of them followed her back down to where Bag End lay strangely empty, half its furniture vanished and the kitchen an explosion of dirty dishes and cutlery. 

“Stand by the window, Thorin, you mustn’t watch,” said Bilbo firmly, and Thorin did as he was told, though fidgety and evidently distressed by something. It was the work of a moment for Bilbo to fetch the muffler, and for the sake of speed he allowed Mama to weave in the little tail of thread, which she did so with practised skill, rendering it quite invisible.

“It’s beautiful,” she said softly, handing it to Bilbo and rising to her feet. She patted his cheek affectionately. “It will suit him.” 

Thorin turned back at the sound of her footsteps leaving the room, and gazed in bemusement at the muffler in Bilbo’s hands. He did not look much less bemused when Bilbo wrapped it around his neck. 

“Perfect,” said Bilbo, very pleased, and put his head on one side to admire the effect. 

The late afternoon light shone through the window behind Thorin so that he almost seemed to glow. It caught on the ridges of his horns and strands of his hair, and glittered on the slow, drifting dust motes surrounding him. He lifted a corner of the scarf to his nose and breathed in, eyes fluttering closed for a moment. “You made this,” he said quietly. “For me?”

“Of course,” said Bilbo. He felt unaccountably wobbly, all of a sudden. “That’s what you do, for birthdays. You give presents to the ones you… well, to your favourite people. There’s a few mistakes in it I’m afraid, I’m only a beginner. But I thought, since you liked that jumper from Mama a few years ago...”

“Thank you,” said Thorin, smiling. Bilbo stammered to a halt and found himself simply smiling foolishly back. Whatever the scent was that Thorin was wearing, it seemed a good deal stronger indoors. Not strong enough to be unpleasant, however. Indeed Bilbo would rather have liked to get a much closer smell, and really pin down what sort of herb or flower it was, so very unfamiliar and bewitching.

Thorin noticed his surreptitious sniffing and cleared his throat, blushing to the tip of his nose. “I should go,” he said again, almost pushing past Bilbo in his haste. Bilbo followed pathetically, unable to summon a good reason to stop his friend again, although surely there ought to have been one.

“You really have to?” asked Bilbo. “What about the cake?”

Thorin shook his head vigorously, turning briefly on the doorstep. “Thank you for inviting me to your party,” he said. “We can meet up again, two Sterdays before Yule, as before?” The blue of the scarf against his eyes was quite the prettiest thing Bilbo had ever seen.

“All right,” Bilbo said, and reached out rather clumsily to shake Thorin’s hand. He did have very warm hands. It was quite an effort to remember to let go.

“Happy Birthday, Bilbo,” said Thorin. He almost sounded sad.

“Thank you, you too,” said Bilbo, dazed enough not to notice his own nonsense. He watched his friend canter away down the hill, the new scarf trailing in the breeze. “Periwinkles,” he said to himself. “Cornflowers. Hyssop, even.”

Not that Bilbo intended to weave a flower crown for Thorin, of course. A special blue one in Autumn flowers chosen to suit his eyes, and his scarf. That would be silly, and they had left such things behind long ago.


	2. A Sunlit Swim

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I really want to put "things are hotting up" here but that would be dreadful, so I shan't.
> 
> ...Oops.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> IMPORTANT: Depending on how you crunch the numbers for Hobbits versus Humans, it is possible to conclude that a 20-year-old-hobbit is equivalent to a 14-year-old human. Just to clarify, that is EMPHATICALLY NOT the case in this fic. On his 20th birthday Bilbo should be imagined as being at around the same stage as a 16/17 year old human, well past the initial onset of puberty though still a long way from adulthood. On reaching his 33rd birthday, Bilbo will have reached a similar point to a human in their early 20's. In case anyone was perturbed. :D 
> 
> My eternal gratitude to the beta-readers for this chapter, the wonderful [Pangur-pangur](http://archiveofourown.org/users/pangur_pangur/pseuds/pangur_pangur) and [HSavinien](http://archiveofourown.org/users/HSavinien), for their genuinely invaluable assistance and patience.
> 
> ALSO THERE IS MORE ARTTTT, this time from Nerdeeart, seriously the art for this story is so much better than the writing deserves I am in tears. [Thorin is so dapper in his scarf!](http://nerdeeart.tumblr.com/post/141695977171/satyrthorin-and-bilbo-from-kittys-adorable)
> 
> AAAND MORE ART, oh gosh so much amazing art!! Ruto drew TONS of scenes from this chapter, and they are unbelievably sweet and beautiful: [Thorin and Bilbo smoking, getting mashed, and recovering.](http://rutobuka2.tumblr.com/post/142908600314/these-are-based-in-ahiddenkittys-tweens-and)

No-one but Thorin (and Dwalin) knew of the secret trip to Hobbiton in the middle of Leaf-Fall. He stuffed the muffler Bilbo had knitted into a leather bag to hide its scent, and then into a well-concealed crevice of his cave, and did not retrieve it until he went out to meet Bilbo once more. Thorin knew Hobbits gave out gifts with generous abandon, for birthdays and holidays and probably any number of other reasons, so it would be easy enough to return wearing it and let Amad assume it was a Yule gift. 

He put it on as soon as he had left the caves behind him, hoping no-one would see, and was rewarded for his daring by Bilbo’s obvious delight to see it being worn. The Hobbit’s cheeks, already red with cold, flushed brighter still when Thorin thanked him again.

“I’m just glad it’s been useful,” he said bashfully, shaking his head as he drew a parcel out from his backpack. “Here, um, I brought cake.”

Cake from Bag End’s kitchen was always welcome. Thorin reached out at once, and had his hand slapped. 

“Not for you!” said Bilbo. “Don’t you remember, you promised Dwalin?” 

Thorin grumbled, remembering. It was Dwalin who had provided him with cover when he sneaked out to the birthday party. Cake or no, Dwalin would never have betrayed him, but nevertheless Thorin would hand over his due, even if it did smell delicious. It would not be such a sacrifice now that he could finally wear his beautiful scarf. 

“I also brought some of the Yule leftovers, for us,” said Bilbo nonchalantly, lifting out a second bundle redolent with the smells of honey and goose and ham and sweetly roasted roots, and sniggered at Thorin’s look of pure glee.

They spent a pleasant day together throwing stones at trees and knocking the snow from the branches, fighting with sticks and making snowballs. The first game was Bilbo’s speciality, and neither of them were much good at the second, but Thorin had long since learned that to beat a Hobbit at snowballs, one had only to stuff one’s missile down their clothes. Bilbo called it a dirty trick, and Thorin found himself laughing hard enough to be brought to the ground when Bilbo tackled him, rubbing large handfuls of snow into Thorin’s face until he could fight his way upright once more. 

To Thorin’s relief, the only itch he felt that day was the prickle of cold, and not the insistent tickling sensation under his skin that had so nearly overwhelmed him at the birthday party. 

It had been a risk, going to meet Bilbo during Leaf-Fall. How great a risk, Thorin had not realised until it was almost too late. Being so close to Bilbo and his faint but intoxicating scent at such a time had brought Thorin half-way to a Mating Bond despite himself, and then there had been the scarf, knitted by Bilbo especially for Thorin, like a courting-gift, and heavy with his smell. Thorin had felt his self-control teetering as if on the edge of a crumbling cliff, threatening to let him fall at any moment. 

So the truth could no longer be denied, even had Thorin wished it. Now they were approaching adulthood, of course it would be Bilbo who would trigger Thorin’s Bond. 

Thorin was, after all, in love with Bilbo.

He knew, however, that Bilbo was neither a Satyr nor aware of their courting customs, and would have meant no such thing by his gift. There was no reason to imagine that Bilbo saw Thorin as anything more than a friend, and that was why Thorin could not risk another birthday party. It was hard to be without each other for months each year when they always had such fun together, but to find himself forced to flee had been humiliating, and he did not intend to let it happen again. 

They would always be friends, as Bilbo had once put it. Friends could be enough, perhaps.

All the same, he wore his treasured gift every day once he had dared to show it off. Any smell but that of wool and woad and old leather bag had long since worn off, and though soon enough it was Spring, and then Summer, Thorin wore his muffler nonetheless. The weather that year was particularly warm, and each morning he would consider whether or not to leave it off at last. Invariably he left his cave with it wound about his neck, and if perhaps it sometimes itched a little against his sweating skin he did not complain.

It was always worth it to see how Bilbo’s eyes lit up with pleasure at the sight.

“Are you still cold? I shall have to knit you some mittens next,” he teased, and Thorin simply grinned. He certainly would not object to that.

“Or a jumper,” he suggested. Bilbo laughed out loud.

“A jumper! If you can wait until Overlithe I might manage it, I suppose. Besides, you’d get heatstroke, you silly thing, you must be boiled alive already.” 

That day was especially warm, the meadow around them dry and parched, tipped with gold and filled with frantically chirping crickets. Even under the shade of a tree, Bilbo looked as if he were melting. Since reaching his tweens he had taken to wearing a waistcoat over his shirt and suspenders, but today it hung open and his sleeves were rolled up. The heat painted his nose and the tips of his ears red, and his hair lay damp against his forehead, so that he reached up to push it back every now and again. Evidently the unusual weather was more bothersome to Hobbits than Satyrs, and yet that might not be the only thing to blame.

“I am not the one lighting fires in midsummer,” said Thorin.

Bilbo frowned in confusion, looking about himself until his eyes alighted on the little bowl of burned leaves in his own hand. It had a long, curved stick poking out of it, and Thorin had never seen it before.

“Oh!” cried Bilbo. “You mean my pipe! That’s not a fire, not really. I was practising… I mean, I was having a smoke while I waited for you. Father gave it to me, he said I’m old enough now.”

“A smoke?” asked Thorin, bemused. 

“Oh yes,” said Bilbo. “Here, you see?” 

He reached into a little pouch on his lap and stuffed a pinch of some dried leaf-stuff into the bowl, then set the end of the stick in his mouth. From a pocket of his waistcoat he drew the little box of fire-starting sticks he called matches, struck one, and carefully, with much puffing and muttered cursing, lit the tiny fire. Then, to Thorin’s astonishment, he removed the stick from his mouth and blew a great cloud of smoke.

“There, you see,” said Bilbo, his eyes a little watery and his voice somewhat hoarse. “Nothing to it.”

“But… why?” asked Thorin. It seemed most unnatural and strange.

“It’s good for you,” explained Bilbo, taking a second, more confident puff. “It relaxes the mind and clears the lungs. Father says it helps him think, and if you practice, you can blow smoke rings. He’s going to teach me how.”

The smell was familiar, realised Thorin. It was part of the scent of Bilbo’s home, and his clothes, though Thorin had not known it before. There was something else to it as well, that did not smell like Hobbits, however, and he thought hard, trying to recall it. 

“Is it _raktmajâd_?” he asked.

“Good health,” said Bilbo reflexively. “Oh, was that a word?”

Thorin rolled his eyes. “ _Raktmajâd_ ,” he said again, more slowly. “It is what we call the tall plant that grows by still water, with many yellow bell-shaped flowers and fragrant leaves.”

“That’s right, that’s exactly the stuff! We call it pipe-weed. Would you like to have a try?” asked Bilbo, offering the stem of the pipe with an encouraging smile. Thorin took it willingly, set it to his lips and sucked in a long breath.

It felt as if his lungs had been set on fire. The taste was sharp and sour and vile, clearly poisonous, and his body rejected it at once. Thorin doubled over, choking and coughing, dropping the horrid thing as he covered his mouth with both hands.

Bilbo patted his back consolingly, and retrieved the pipe from the dry grass before it had a chance to catch. “Yes,” he said, just a fraction too casually. “It often takes one unawares, at first. You’ll get the hang of it.” 

To demonstrate, he took another puff himself, looking entirely too smug for Thorin’s liking.

Thorin scowled, his throat too dry and sore for speech until he had swallowed a few times. His mouth felt as if it had been coated in muck, and he badly wanted a drink of clean water. 

“We do not breathe it,” he growled.

“I can tell,” said Bilbo, grinning, before curiosity got the better of him, as it inevitably did. “So what do you do, then?”

“I will show you,” said Thorin, and without another word he struck out for the trees behind them, heading towards the nearest crop of which he knew. There were not many parts of the woods that they had not explored together, but Thorin had never taken Bilbo this way before. It was difficult going for those not so sure-hooved as Satyrs. 

He led the way through thick stands of bracken as tall as Bilbo’s chest and over long-dead trees slippery with mushroom growths. The forest was older here, the light more dim and the air refreshingly cool. Bilbo did his best to keep up, although not without a lump or two on his shins since the arrangement of Hobbits’ legs seemed calculated to catch every hard surface against their most tender places. Ancient, moss-covered rocks broke through the undergrowth more often the further they went, some split by roots and branches, and at length they reached the rocky overhang that sat above the Healer’s Pool. 

“Down here,” said Thorin, taking Bilbo’s hand, and jumped. Their landing was soft green grass, and Bilbo’s startled yelp cut off in a gasp of wonder. 

The pool lay in a wide, grassy bowl, perhaps 20 yards across, its waters glittering in the sunshine as dragonflies criss-crossed over its surface. Around the edges grew low witch-hazels and the plants Bilbo called pipe-weed, and further back were tall willows, but their shade did not reach to the water, especially with the sun so bright and high. All that grew in this spot was good for healing and soothing pain, Thorin knew, and the pool was considered something of a sacred site by the Satyrs for that reason.

“I had no idea this place existed,” whispered Bilbo, rubbing his bruised legs. 

Thorin smiled with pride, pulling the muffler from his neck at last and setting it, carefully folded, upon a convenient stone. He trotted forward to scoop up a mouthful of cool, clear water in his palms, drinking it down and splashing more over his shoulders and neck. The sweet scent of the _raktmajâd_ leaves hung heavy in the air on such a hot day, as butterflies and quietly buzzing bees moved lazily amongst their flowers. 

“Here,” Thorin said, pointing as he stood once more. “This is what Oin uses, to read the portents.”

“I see,” said Bilbo, nodding. “What are portents? Who is Oin?”

There was nothing so pleasing as when Bilbo’s curiosity was roused and it was Thorin who could supply him with knowledge. None of it seemed very mysterious stuff to him, but Bilbo would listen wide-eyed, rapt with attention, and Thorin’s heart would swell so much with happiness that he knew he often said more than he was supposed to.

“Oin is the elder brother of my friend Gloin; he is training as a Healer. They learn to use the _raktmajâd_ to poultice wounds, and sometimes they chew it, and it tells them when we must move on from a place and where we must go.” 

Thorin paused, considering. It was strange to imagine leaving the Shire. They had lived in the caves under Bindbale Woods for almost ten years, and Amad said it was the longest they had stayed anywhere. Perhaps they had settled, now. Perhaps it would be as it had been back East, as the stories told, when they were not a wandering people. He hoped so.

Glancing up, he found Bilbo frowning at him in confusion. Quickly he pinched out the pale green leaf-tips at the top of the plant, as he had seen Oin do. 

“Like this,” said Thorin, and put them into his mouth, chewing carefully as he plucked a few more leaves. It tasted unpleasant. “Here,” he said, holding them out.

Bilbo hesitated, his hand hovering over the gift. “Are you sure? What if...” He swallowed nervously. “I mean, you Satyrs can eat cherry stones. Mightn’t this be poisonous to Hobbits?”

Thorin had not forgotten the look on his friend’s face when he had choked on the pipe-smoke, and besides, Balin said the men-folk of Bree often chewed such leaves. “If you are afraid,” he shrugged, and stuffed the proffered leaves into his own mouth.

Exactly as expected Bilbo scowled, pulling indiscriminate handfuls from the plant himself, and thrust an entire fistfull into his mouth. He chewed determinedly a few times before retching.

“Thiff fstuff is diffguffting!” managed Bilbo, his voice somewhat muffled by the quantity of foliage in his mouth.

Thorin grinned. “It gets sweeter the longer you chew,” he said, repeating what he had been told. So it was proving. Already the taste was no longer so harsh, but a mild, earthy tang that had begun to make his head a little fuzzy.

Before long it had chewed down into a small enough wad to tuck inside his lower lip, as Oin did, and he tried to show Bilbo and encourage him to do the same. The attempt was only partly successful. Bilbo’s face contorted with effort, grimacing as he struggled to push the huge lump of leaves under his lip with his tongue. Green scraps decorated his teeth, and with his bare chin, the large bulge under his lip looked ridiculous.

It was more than Thorin could stand. He sat down so hard it was more like falling, snorting with laughter, until he was drumming his hooves upon the soft grass with rather more mirth than perhaps was good manners. Not that it mattered, since Bilbo was beside him, giggling almost as much himself. 

“I gan thee,” began Bilbo, his words distorted by the obstacle in his lip, and that was all it took to set them both off again. They laughed until Thorin’s stomach muscles ached with it, until they were both breathless and giddy with merriment.

At last Bilbo sat up, spitting his mouthful a few feet away, where it landed with an audible thud. “I can see why we smoke it instead,” he said, wiping his eyes. “That’s better. You must admit it’s pretty foul, even if it does sweeten up.”

Thorin chuckled still, staring up at the trees and sky. He had long suspected Hobbits to have a fussier palate than Satyrs. For himself, Thorin could barely taste the stuff by now.

Bilbo was scrubbing at his teeth with a finger, picking the remnants from his gums. He heaved a louder, more dramatic sigh than usual, and flung himself back against the grass, arms above his head. “I can’t feel a thing, you know,” he said. “I don’t think it’s worked.”

It was working on Thorin. A moment before, he had been marvelling at the thousand shades of green in the leaves above their heads, but now his attention was solely and entirely caught by the Hobbit beside him. Truly, Bilbo was something miraculous, and worth careful observation.

“Hello,” giggled Bilbo, rolling onto his side to face Thorin. His face was very close, so close that Thorin could see every freckle on Bilbo’s sun-pink nose. “You’re funny.”

“I?” asked Thorin. More words than that seemed beyond him, preoccupied as he was with the strands of red and gold in Bilbo’s hair that caught the sunlight. And his eyes, that were such a peculiar and pretty mix of colours, grey and brown and blue like sliced agate.

“Yes,” said Bilbo, reaching out. “You’ve got horns. Growing out of your head.”

Thorin lay very still as Bilbo stroked a hand over his horns. It was not as if he could feel much there, but still, the touch registered a little, and it was odd, to have Bilbo caressing him so. Thankfully it did not last, but then Bilbo’s small hands shifted downwards to comb through Thorin’s hair, pushing it back from his face and then moving over his short beard, digging his fingers deeply in to touch the skin beneath.

“And all this. This hair,” said Bilbo, his fingertips massaging Thorin’s jaw absently. It felt very pleasant. “And your fluffy ears. It’s funny.”

“My ears are funny?” asked Thorin, both affronted and secretly relieved to find an appropriate emotion. “Yours are more strange than mine.” He stretched a hand over to draw a fingertip over the peculiarly stiff, pointed tip of Bilbo’s ear, as bald as his chin. 

The reaction was unexpected. Bilbo’s eyes widened and his mouth dropped open on a sigh that was almost a groan, obscene with pleasure. For a moment they stared at one another in bewilderment, as Thorin registered suddenly quite how enormous and black the pupils of Bilbo’s eyes had become. A memory rose of the two of them long ago in Thorin’s cave, and how Bilbo’s eyes had looked in the dim light, sitting so close together upon the bed. But they were older now, and it was not dark, and Thorin’s heart hammered at his ribs as if he had outrun a Warg.

“I will swim,” he said, sitting up swiftly enough to make his head spin.

He scrambled for the pool, plunging into its welcome chill with relief. The cold bit into his overheated skin, and Thorin held his breath and let momentum carry him forward, staying under as long as he could bear. When he broke for air he was almost at the pool’s centre, and he flicked his wet hair back from his eyes, turning to apologise to Bilbo.

The Hobbit stood ankle-deep in the water already, staring dazed at Thorin with his waistcoat already removed. Before Thorin could say a word, Bilbo had half-unbuttoned his shirt, pushing off his suspenders to pull it over his head and tossing it behind him. 

“Good idea,” he said, dropping his britches. “Me too.”

Thorin had known, in some part of his mind, that Bilbo’s clothes were not part of his skin. He had known that Bilbo must have flesh beneath his linens and wool, but it was hard to imagine. Yet here was the evidence, wading towards him, and Thorin could only gape at the sight. Under his britches Bilbo wore a second, smaller pair of some flimsier cloth that tied at his waist with a string and billowed out around him as the water deepened. He was more soft and slight than Thorin could even have imagined, his chest and belly so hairless that his nipples seemed brazenly pink and exposed, though as the cold of the water struck him Bilbo lifted his arms in a wince and Thorin saw small tufted curls in his armpits. His smooth, unmarked skin was whiter where his clothes had not covered it from the sun, as pale as quartz, so that his face and arms seem almost golden in comparison. 

“Bilbo, wait. You cannot swim,” said Thorin, abruptly remembering. 

Bilbo stopped, the water above his waist by now. “Is it difficult?” he asked, shivering. His voice sounded thick and slurred.

“Not once you have learned.” Thorin dived back in, swimming closer to Bilbo. “Come out, before you drown.”

“Don’t you give me orders,” said Bilbo, wagging a clumsy finger. He bent down, as if to duck his head, then toppled forwards with a mighty splash, vanishing completely for one heart-stopping moment before he floundered back to the surface, choking, hair plastered to his face and gasping like a landed fish.

“Oh, oh gosh, that’s cold!” he said, trying to laugh once he found his feet again, and then clapped a hand over his mouth rather abruptly, as if he thought he might be sick. He looked decidedly paler than he had a moment before.

“Bilbo?” asked Thorin cautiously.

Bilbo’s hand shifted upwards, covering his eyes instead now, and to Thorin’s relief he did not vomit. “I don’t… ooh. I don’t feel well. I might need to lie down.”

Gently, Thorin took his friend by the elbow and led him back to the bank. Bilbo followed meekly as a kid, not at all like his usual self, and as soon as they reached the bank again, he collapsed entirely, lying back on the grass with an arm flung over his face.

This was Thorin’s doing. He had led his friend, his beloved, into pain and sickness, like a headstrong fool.

“Stop it,” muttered Bilbo. “I’m fine.”

“I… I was not doing anything,” said Thorin, his concern increasing. He leaned over Bilbo, afraid the Hobbit might be seeing things or hearing voices.

“You were, you were fretting and blaming yourself and thinking what a dreadful beast you are. I could’ve heard you from Michel Delving. So stop,” snapped Bilbo, sounding much more like himself, although he didn’t stir. “I ate the dratted stuff, or, well, I chewed it, I suppose, and I don’t have the energy to argue with you just at present. I just want to lie down for a bit.”

Thorin sat back. He eyed Bilbo’s prone form anxiously, watching the pale, bare chest rise and fall with each breath, and the flicking pulse in the thin skin at Bilbo’s wrist. His hair dripped, dark with water, though the sun was still warm and the wet drops on Bilbo’s skin were already shrinking to nothingness. Unbidden, Thorin’s gaze drifted downwards, over the curves of Bilbo’s body to where the thin britches revealed another small patch of hair, just a tuft or so, at the base of Bilbo’s rounded stomach. It grew above and around a protuberance that seemed impossibly exposed.

Outlined against the pale, wet linen it looked as plump and naked as a newborn rabbit, and the urge to reach out and poke it, to see if it was as soft as it looked, was very strong. Thorin had never seen something so clearly in need of a caress, a gentle stroke, that seemed to invite touch so obviously. It looked too vulnerable, nestled against Bilbo’s stones, and Thorin wondered if it would swing as he walked. Had it always done so, concealed by Bilbo’s britches? The thought was bewildering. How would it stand, when it woke? Surely the angle would be quite different to Thorin’s own?

“You didn’t ought to stare,” mumbled Bilbo, one baleful eye open, and he flopped over onto his stomach. That was almost worse. The half-transparent cloth clung no less intimately to the curves of Bilbo’s arse and the deep crease between, with not even a tail to obscure it. Thorin wrenched his gaze away, dropping his head into his hands and snarling to himself under his breath.

This torment was a punishment upon him, for being a coward and a fool besides. It was shameful not to have told Bilbo the truth of his regard for him, how dearly Thorin loved him and always would. No matter if the Hobbit did not return his feelings. They were friends, were they not? Friends forever. Thorin took a deep breath, determined to speak.

And Bilbo snored.

Groaning, Thorin rolled onto his side, away from Bilbo, his compelling beauty and his sharp tongue and his ill-timed sleepiness. Once again the universe loved to thwart Thorin at every turn. The day was warm however, and the scent of the glade was pleasant, and for all his heartsickness, it was not long before he, too, slept.

\---

It was growing darker, and already much colder, before they awoke. Both were at least dry, and Bilbo hurriedly dressed himself, teeth chattering, rubbing his arms and stamping his long feet to try to get warm.

“Mama’s going to kill me,” he muttered, eyeing the climb back up out of the glade with trepidation. 

“Amad will not be happy either,” agreed Thorin, bouncing easily up the first few feet and reaching back for Bilbo’s hand. It was a scramble, more difficult with cold fingers and tired limbs, but at least the effort began to warm Thorin once more. Once they reached the edge of the woods he squinted at the sky, to better gauge the time, and allowed himself a grunt of relief. He could be home within two hours or so, if he galloped his fastest. He turned to bid Bilbo good night, and found his friend seated on the ground looking forlorn.

“I can’t go any further,” whined Bilbo, flapping a hand towards the bruises already beginning to purple on his shins. “I’m injured, look, I’ve lumps the size of duck-eggs, and anyway I still don’t feel well.”

“It is not far,” said Thorin irritably. Sleeping in the sun combined with the receding effects of the _raktmajâd_ were beginning to give him a headache.

Bilbo flopped down like a wounded bird. “It’s no good. I’ll have to sleep here.”

Thorin sighed, tapping a hoof in frustration. There was only one solution he could see, and ignoring Bilbo’s outraged protests, he scooped up his friend into his arms. Bilbo’s weight was barely enough to notice, and it was no great distance to Bagshot Row walking briskly. The setting sun was in Thorin’s eyes and he did not wish to tarry about it.

“Hold on about my neck,” Thorin told Bilbo gruffly. “Lest I drop you.”

“Oh, you big lout,” huffed Bilbo, though he did as instructed. “What are you doing? Must you carry me like a rescued damsel?”

“You are the Princess,” Thorin said, and grinned. “And this time, I am the Brave Soldier.”

Bilbo snorted with laughter at that, sniggering quietly as he rested his head against Thorin’s shoulder, a warm, solid bundle. 

“All right, this once,” said Bilbo, yawning widely, and as Thorin walked, Bilbo’s breath grew slower and deeper, until he was asleep once more. 

Asleep, Bilbo’s grip about Thorin’s neck only tightened, and he turned his face, sighing softly and pressing it into the hollow below Thorin’s collarbone, snuggling under his muffler like a blanket. It was hard to tell, now, whether this was more torture or some strange reward. Certainly Thorin had never held Bilbo so closely for so long, and the sweet sense of rightness about his burden carried him forward, his steps as light as if he walked on clouds. They met no-one on the road but songbirds, loud in the trees and fields beside them, singing the sun to bed. The oak tree atop Bagshot Row appeared upon the horizon, black against the purple sky, and some weak, selfish part of Thorin wished all time could stop in this moment. 

Bilbo’s Mama would be waiting, however, and probably worried, so Thorin walked on. Just inside the gate to Bag End was a bench where he deposited his sleeping cargo as gently as he could, and climbed the steps to knock on the door.

It was opened so swiftly he almost knocked upon Bilbo’s Mama, and the shock that stayed his hand regrettably also stole his words.

“Where on earth have you been? You really must stop frightening me so, the pair of you, you know quite well you’ve to be home by sundown,” scolded Bilbo’s Mama, and Thorin could only point to where Bilbo lay snoring on the bench.

“He fell asleep,” blurted Thorin.

“Didn’t he, though,” she said suspiciously. “He looks out for the count. What have you two been up to this time?”

“We swam,” said Thorin, hoping it would be enough of the truth.

“I see,” said Bilbo’s Mama slowly. She sighed, folding her arms. “Well, I shall ask his Father to fetch him indoors to bed, and thank you, I suppose, for bringing him home. Can offer you a cup of tea?”

“Thank you,” said Thorin, guilt heavy on his heart. “I must get home.”

“But my goodness, how long will that take you?”

“Not so long,” said Thorin, though once again it was not exactly true. It would be long past nightfall before he was home, he knew, but he could see well enough in the dark, and Amad was unlikely to punish him beyond withholding the dinner he would already have missed.

He bowed and turned to go, clattering back down the stone steps to the gate. His hand briefly found Bilbo’s hair as he passed, stroking it back from his forehead, and he almost did not hear Bilbo’s Mama when she spoke again, mostly to herself.

“Silly boys. And yet you do take such care of him. Good night, Thorin dear.”


	3. Dreams and Discoveries

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> FINALLY, Bilbo.
> 
> ohhh, GOSH, the arts for this chapter from [ruto](http://archiveofourown.org/users/rutobuka/) are PARTICULARLY AMAZING. [Click here for Dreams, Books, Explorations and Conversations!](http://rutobuka2.tumblr.com/post/143494249344/some-scenes-from-the-third-chapter-of)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [Pangur-pangur](archiveofourown.org/users/pangur_pangur/) continues to be the best. :D
> 
> Full disclosure: there is going to be a big gap before the next chapter. Sorry chaps, it's fighting me horribly.

It was a very tall mountain, and Bilbo could not remember why they were climbing it nor how they had got there in the first place. There was hardly time for such idle thoughts, however, with Thorin so far ahead of him, scuttling sure-hooved over the rocks with ease while Bilbo scrambled breathlessly in his wake. 

“Wait for me!” called Bilbo, and Thorin glanced over his shoulder for a moment, then charged on ahead again, bounding ever upwards as if he were flying, not climbing. High above them the summit of the mountain soared, a single peak outlined against a backdrop of blue as bright as Thorin’s eyes. The broad muscle of Thorin’s back rippled as he moved, glowing under a sheen of sweat, and Bilbo realised that he wasn’t so very far ahead at all. Indeed, they were climbing side by side.

“Are you ready?” asked Thorin. His voice didn’t sound quite right, although Bilbo couldn’t put his finger on why.

“For what?” asked Bilbo, confused.

“To make camp,” said Thorin. “It’s past bedtime.”

It was. Bilbo looked around to find the sky was black as pitch, tiny silver stars twinkling overhead. There was no glow from any towns or villages down in the valley below, not even the little spark of campfires, and all the light they had was the moon, pale and round as a cheese, as if it were close enough to touch. 

“Look, there’s a cave,” Thorin said, and so there was, just beside them. It wasn’t much, just a shallow niche in the rock, but Bilbo followed Thorin inside, and it turned out to be much larger than it had seemed, and wonderfully warm and dry. Soon they sat beside a merry fire kindled in a sort of metal basket, of the kind that Father used for picnics, and Thorin had apparently brought the poker from Bag End to turn the coals with. 

“I think we have to sit very close together, for warmth,” said Thorin.

“But I’m not cold,” said Bilbo, looking down at his nightshirt. It was a little odd, that, to be climbing a mountain in his nightshirt, and odder still that he wasn’t cold. Presumably there was some reason behind it, and he supposed all the exercise had warmed him up.

“Give your hands here,” said Thorin. “I’ll rub them warm, the way your Mama does.”

“Oh yes,” said Bilbo gratefully. That seemed exactly what was needed. He put his hands in Thorin’s large, warm grip and Thorin rubbed carefully, moving up past Bilbo’s wrists to his arms after a while, and it felt very nice.

“I have a very good idea,” said Thorin presently. “If we rub our whole bodies together, we would be warm all over.”

Bilbo nodded, because that obviously was a good idea, and luckily his nightshirt had come off at some point, though he didn’t recall removing it. Thorin wrapped his big, strong arms around Bilbo’s shoulders and they squirmed up against each other in the little cave. It was a funny thing to do, and Bilbo couldn’t help giggling. Thorin was laughing too, looking so happy it quite took Bilbo’s breath away. The little fire was getting extremely hot, and bright, and quite suddenly the ground beneath them seemed to be moving more than it ought.

“What’s happening?” asked Bilbo, alarmed, and Thorin held him tightly.

“It’s just an avalanche,” said Thorin.

“But isn’t that dangerous?” asked Bilbo, more than merely alarmed now, struggling to free himself from Thorin’s grip. The rock surrounding them shook, scattering pebbles and dust, and the stone cracked apart with a sound like thunder. Searing flames seemed to lick right up to the roof, and in his thrashing panic Bilbo banged his head hard against the wall and yelped awake.

It was still dark in his bedroom. 

In his sleep he had somehow twisted himself up in his bedsheets so securely that he could barely move, and it took quite some wriggling to free his arms again. There was also some mess smeared against his stomach, wet and slimy to the touch, and it crossed his mind that he ought to get out of bed and clean it up. Although… it was still nighttime, and he was dreadfully tired after that peculiar dream. It hadn’t been a nightmare, exactly, and most of it had been rather nice.

Bilbo rolled onto his back, sighed, and fell back to sleep. 

\--

It was late when Bilbo woke again. He had to scamper somewhat to be washed and dressed in time for breakfast, never mind any other chores requiring his attention. However, he had no wish to sleep in soiled sheets again that night, and excused himself from the table as soon as he could.

Usually his Mama took care of changing the beds, and he found himself mildly confounded by the task. It was close to Second Breakfast by the time he was done, and after rushing his first meal of the day, Bilbo was distinctly peckish. He slid onto the bench at the kitchen table to watch his mother beating eggs for scrambling. Mama hummed as she worked, the day’s bread still cooling on the racks beside her, everything in its place and just as it ought to be. She stirred in milk and a little butter to the eggs, and began to chop a fluffy pile of dill tops, and Bilbo’s stomach growled in anticipation.

“Where have you been, my lad, with pots to wash? I had to get your Father to help me,” she said.

“Sorry, I was changing my sheets. I put the old ones in the hamper,” said Bilbo, and Mama turned to him in surprise.

“Those were clean on two days ago, Bilbo! Have you been eating in bed again?”

“No,” said Bilbo, feeling his face get hot. “I, well. I had an uncomfortable dream.”

Mama’s expression moved from confusion to understanding and then to something akin to concern, and she wiped her hands briskly on her apron and set the chopping board aside. “I see. Well, don’t worry about the sheets, I shall take care of those. Good weather for washing in any case. Come with me, darling.”

She swept him through the dining room and around to the study, where Father was at his desk, outlined in the morning sunshine that poured through the wide window. He sat surrounded by stacks of paper, scribbling furiously and looking about as pleased to be disturbed as Bilbo was to be taken out of the kitchen. There was no gainsaying Mama, however.

“Bungo,” she said. “It’s time.”

“It can’t be,” grumbled Father. “We’ve barely washed up from first breakfast, and I need to finish these accounts. Get Bilbo to do it, whatever it is.”

“No no no,” said Mama, with a lightness that her expression belied. “It’s time. For you to talk to your son about certain matters of importance. That we discussed a few nights ago. You remember, when our dear son came home late and somewhat the worse for wear.”

Bilbo would have liked to roll his eyes at that. It was hardly as if he were the only tween ever to behave in such a fashion, and for the most part he considered himself a commendably dutiful son. However, in this case Mama was correct, and he could hardly defend himself further when he remembered no more than a few, fuzzy moments of that day.

Father spun in his chair at once, looking stricken enough for Bilbo to feel a renewed pang of unease. “Ah,” he said. “Well then. I suppose you’d better leave us to it, dear.”

Mama nodded in satisfaction and pushed Bilbo into the room, closing the door behind her as she left. As soon as she had, Father dove for the bottom drawer of his desk, rummaging around until he drew out some very old, tattered book with extremely faded lettering on the cover, so worn that Bilbo couldn’t make it out.

“Here,” said Father, pressing it into Bilbo’s hands very solemnly, as if it were a sacred object. “My lad,” he said, “I was given this book by my father, and I shouldn’t be surprised if he had from his father before him.”

“But what’s it about?” asked Bilbo, entirely at a loss.

“Oh, you’ll see,” said his Father. He was fiddling with his ascot and making a dreadful untidy mess of it, a thing he only did when much perturbed. “You must read it in private, but everything you need to know is in these pages, and if you have any questions… well. I’m sure you won’t. The text is very thorough.”

“But...” began Bilbo, before pained look on his Father’s face stopped him. Instead he nodded obediently and took the book back to his room, intrigued. In the kitchen he could hear his mother singing merrily to herself once more.

Bilbo climbed back onto his bed, arranging the pillows comfortably against the headboard, and sat cross-legged, ready to begin. Even peering closely he could not quite make out the faint, gold-stamped letters across the front of the book, but he opened the cover and found the title page written in a large, bold hand. 

  
_What A Hobbit Ought To Know._  
_A First Introduction to the Blessings of Marriage, fully illustrated, including practical advice to ensure lifelong satisfaction in matrimony and supplementary chapters of instruction to ensure the common mastery of bodily pleasures. Set down by Mrs Esmeldarine Botty, gentlehobbit of the East Farthing, a mother to 12, grandmother to 35, and great-grandmother to 74. A happy wife of 67 years._  
_Inscribed in fair copy from the original by Calwell Botty, edition number 37 of 50._

Bilbo was at a loss to understand what this could have to do with cleaning bedsheets or peculiar dreams, but he had no objection to acquiring knowledge that a Hobbit Ought to Know. The book was not slim, and the text had been copied in a very precise hand, accompanied with detailed illustrations printed from engraved plates. It could only be assumed that the author must be very knowledgeable upon her subject. 

Skipping the introduction, which seemed mostly Mrs Botty’s reminiscences of her own happy marriage, he opened the book at Chapter One and abruptly shut it again. 

There was no mistaking a picture like that, and really, it seemed simply unnecessary. He had only to peep down his own britches if he wanted to see one of those.

Cautiously he re-opened the book and turned to the following page, where he found a diagram of some unfamiliar sort of wild orchid growing from a bed of lichen in the fork of a tree branch. That was all right, he liked flowers well enough. Except it was rather an odd sort of orchid, and then when he read what was written beside it, he realised that it wasn’t a flower at all. He couldn’t help thinking it seemed a terribly strange and complex thing for Mama and all his Aunts to be keeping beneath their skirts.

However, it would not do to shy away from what ought to be known, so Bilbo diligently began to read. Early on he found a section titled “Nocturnal Emissions”, which explained a few things yet created more questions of its own. He could not help feeling rather overwhelmed. If all that lay in this book was to be his future, perhaps it was little wonder his dreaming mind would prefer to imagine simply climbing mountains with his best friend.

He had never really considered such matters beyond a vague, livestock-based awareness of where fauntlings came from, but it seemed that such knowledge was no more than piecrust and there were all sorts of filings yet to consider. Bilbo began to have a rather awed respect for Mrs Botty, whose writings were not merely practical but remarkably inventive, and at length his curiosity was piqued, and he found himself reading more eagerly. Skimming through the pages, he discovered several chapters towards the end detailing truly astonishing activities. Elements of these might even be explored alone, by oneself, and indeed Mrs Botty recommended such practice, the better to guide one’s partner once such a person could be acquired.

There was hardly time to read the whole book before Second Breakfast would be on the table, but he carefully set bookmarks at a few pages and resolved to study them that evening. 

As he flicked back through the book, pausing on the picture of the orchid-that-wasn’t, Bilbo caught himself wondering if one of those was hiding under Thorin’s shaggy fur. Given how he had stared at Bilbo when they went swimming, he didn’t have quite what Bilbo did. Although, he was not a Hobbit, and perhaps that meant things would be different again.

Bilbo set the book carefully aside and tiptoed back to his Father’s study. The savory aroma of cooking eggs and herbs drifted through the smial. He knocked on the open door, and Father glanced up from his ledger, with a smile that was close to a grimace.

“That was fast reading, my lad! Something wrong?” he asked.

“Not really,” said Bilbo, wondering how to put it. “It’s a very interesting book. It’s only about Hobbits, though. I wondered if you had books about the other races, like Elves, or Men. Or, um, Satyrs.”

Father passed a hand over his eyes, looking strained. “I must say, Bilbo, I can’t see why that would be necessary.” 

With abrupt horror Bilbo saw the assumption his Father had drawn. Of course Bilbo merely sought further information, but it was very likely his Father might now think he wished to… engage in certain blessings with his best, most important friend. And that was not at all Bilbo’s intention, of course. That would not be appropriate at all.

Father was still speaking, partly to himself. “Although, ‘the curious mind should never be stayed’, as my late Father used to say. Well, I have a few things about animal husbandry, that would cover goats, at least. There might be similarities.”

“Oh, no no,” said Bilbo, too flustered to stop himself. “Satyrs aren’t like goats, Father. They’re the same as us, they aren’t half of anything.” 

“Is that so?” asked his Father, his eyebrows rising, and Bilbo could have wished for the good earth to swallow him. Though perhaps he didn’t need to wish, since he seemed to be digging a fair hole for himself already.

“It’s ready!” called Mama gaily, and poked her head around the door. “I thought we might have a little smoked trout with our eggs, as a treat. How did it go?”

“Fine,” said Bilbo before his father could speak, and walked directly out of the room towards the kitchen. “It went fine. Have we any peppercorns for the trout?”

\--

There were indeed peppercorns. The trout was delicious, as were the eggs. The conversation, however, was not quite so free and cheerful as it had been at the family’s last mealtime. Bilbo thanked his Mama politely and asked if he might be excused again from his chores to go to Hobbiton, and see about a waistcoat he had ordered a week or so earlier.

“I’ve changed my mind about the buttons,” he explained, pretending not to see as Mama and his Father exchanged a meaningful look. 

They made no objection, so Bilbo found his sunhat and set off, and if he took a longer route than usual, then that was his business. On finally reaching Hobbiton, he found the Tailor’s had closed early, it being Hevensday, and yet he didn’t mind. Perhaps the buttons he had first chosen would do after all. 

By then it was past lunchtime, so Bilbo took his purse to the Bakery. He rapped on the window to see if there were any leftovers, and Goody Cotton the Baker sold him two raspberry buns, for which he thanked her very much, apologising for the inconvenience. On such a fine day it would have been a shame to be indoors, so he wandered across to Bywater Pool, dipping his toes in while he ate. They were good buns, though not a patch on his Father’s. A few ducks were laughing on the pond with their half-grown ducklings following after them, and there was enough breeze to keep the day from being too warm. All in all, it was very pleasant.

Bilbo sighed, wondering if it would be worse to come home to parents eager to discuss his new-found sexual attraction to satyrs, or to find the whole subject swept under the rug. The latter would be easier, but it seemed the sort of misunderstanding one ought not to let continue. Of course Bilbo was not interested in Thorin in that sort of way. The mere idea was absurd. Exactly why it was absurd was a complex matter, one that would take a little while to fully articulate, but of its fundamental absurdity Bilbo had no doubt.

His meagre lunch finished, he took a diversion on his way home to a spot where he had found horse mushrooms before. It was the perfect season, and there were plenty, fat and broad with nicely browned gills, so many that Bilbo took off his jacket to carry them all in a makeshift basket, and did not return to Bag End until almost suppertime. 

Once Bilbo had washed and tidied up, there was chicken pie waiting on for him the table, which he ate with relish, scarcely joining in his parents’ conversation at all. Mama was not about to let him plead off washing dishes for a third time that day, but with a little application the task was done quickly enough, and it seemed quite reasonable to Bilbo that he should head early to bed afterwards. He had walked a long time in the hot sun, after all.

“Won’t you be joining us for a cup of tea in the parlor? Perhaps some hot milk?” asked his Father as Bilbo excused himself.

“No thank you,” said Bilbo politely, and made his escape. 

Safely behind his bedroom door, he readied himself for bed and climbed under his coverlets. Just as he leaned over to blow out his candle, he hesitated.

The Book lay upon his bedside table, its faint lettering gleaming in the light of the small flame. His candle had a good hour or so left in it, and it seemed unlikely he would be disturbed. With some trepidation, Bilbo took it up, propped it upon his pillow, and began to read once more. 

After a perfunctory recap of the first chapters, he skipped forward to one of the last bookmarks, the one marking the most extraordinary chapter he had found, and pressed the pages open with one hand. 

According to the author, it was possible to achieve the act of penetration via a part of the body that Bilbo had only ever considered an exit, when he had considered it at all. With the use of specially-made instruments and harnesses, it could make for “a pretty turn-about for husband and goodwife”, and apparently some Hobbits even preferred it. The whole business seemed unimaginably peculiar.

Almost without realising, Bilbo’s free hand crept down beneath the covers, reaching back to tug up the hem of his nightshirt and stroke a fingertip along the cleft of his arse. He ventured a tentative press, until he reached the place where the skin cockled and seemed to give way just a little under his touch. He squirmed to get comfortable as, unexpectedly, his prick began to fill and his skin grew sensitive against the bedlinens. 

It was not the first time that had happened, of course. It had always been an organ of interest, at bathtimes particularly, and Mama had loudly despaired of how long Bilbo took over his morning toilette of late, but to have it stir so immediately was new. Perhaps it was the excitement of touching himself in a place that seemed so obviously contrary to nature, even if the book assured its readers that it need not be so unclean as might be imagined. 

It felt like such a tiny hole. According to the book, however, it could be stretched, gently and carefully, with the use of a salve for which a recipe was helpfully provided. Bilbo took a deep breath and read on, though his concentration was now not all it could be. Oil or butter might be used at a pinch, apparently, although never honey. The requirement was lubrication, he read, as he pressed ever so slightly harder. His fingers were only small, of course, which would presumably help.

Thorin’s hands were much larger. 

The thought rose unexpectedly in Bilbo’s mind and he realised that he was harder now than he could ever remember before, grinding against his mattress, suddenly wondering how it would feel if he were not doing this alone in his room. If the heavy quilt above him were instead the warm weight of his friend, the scent of his hair laying over Bilbo’s shoulders, and he closed his eyes to imagine it, reading forgotten for the moment.

“Bilbo? May I come in?” called Mama, tapping at his bedroom door.

Bilbo shrieked and threw the book halfway across the room. The door opened at once, and Mama hurried inside, her dressing-gown flapping about in her haste and the long braid of her hair flying behind her. 

“Are you all right?” she asked anxiously. Then she caught sight of the book lying upon the floor, and simply stood, looking as confounded as Bilbo had ever seen her. 

“Oh, Bilbo, my goodness, I’m so sorry,” she said, picking it up gingerly. “It can wait until morning. I didn’t mean to interrupt. Your reading, I mean. To interrupt your reading. I’m sorry. It’s a good book, very useful. Sorry.” 

Mama was babbling, a thing seldom to be witnessed, and Bilbo could almost pity her. “It’s all right,” he said, rolling over to lean back on his elbows. “I’m awake, so... if you wanted to tell me something, you may as well.”

Turning the book over in her hands, Mama sighed, and crossed to sit on the edge of his bed. She tidied her long plait over her shoulder with one hand, and the candlelight caught upon the few silvery strands amongst the dark brown. “Your grandfather has the fourth copy of this in his library, you know. I think your Aunt Mira can recite it from memory.”

Bilbo could not help a small sound of shock, and Mama smiled. “It doesn’t quite cover everything, however, as you know. And I think there are some things not covered in this book that I would like you to know. That you ought to know, before you read any further,” she said, and then paused. “I want to tell you about the day I married your Father.”

For one ghastly moment Bilbo had wondered where on earth his mother could have learned the intimate details of satyrs, and it was such a relief to discover that was not her subject that he nodded eagerly.

“I was quite young when I married, you know, for all my mother swore I’d be an old maid with my wild ways,” Mama said. “Your father proposed when I was only twenty-nine, though Papa insisted we wait until I had come of age. I think he was hoping to put me off. Or to put your Father off. Something of that sort.”

“Whatever for?” asked Bilbo, instinctively offended on his parents’ behalf. 

“He thought we were too different to make one another happy,” said Mama, with no bitterness. “He was worried for me, the old dear. I remember it very clearly, standing before the long mirror in Mama’s dressing room, with roses and sunflowers in my hair and my pretty new dress on. Papa came and stood behind me with his hands on my shoulders and said, very gently, that I would always be welcome under his roof. He said that he knew Bungo was very handsome, and a good stable sort, but I deserved to be happy, and if things didn’t work out, I shouldn’t worry about my reputation, but simply come home.”

“Gosh,” said Bilbo. He had always known that his parents were considered an odd pair, but the thought that even Grandfather had not approved of the match was new. “What did you do?” he asked.

His Mama laughed, though her eyes seemed to shine a little. She didn’t look up from the book in her hands. “I cried,” she said quietly. “I burst into tears, and I hugged him so tightly. I was simply so frightened, Bilbo, frightened that I was making a terrible mistake, just as everyone else thought I was.”

Mama fell silent, although that could not be the end of the story. At length, Bilbo dared to ask. “So what happened next?”

Mama sniffed, and raised a hand briefly to her face as if to knock the tears from her eyes. “It was raining, you know, and I almost wondered if that was a sign, too. Mama brought me a cold flannel so that my eyes wouldn’t look puffy and by the time I’d calmed down, the music had started and we were off. There’s nothing quite like the risk of being late to put other worries to one side, so I was through the door and half-way up the aisle before I quite knew what I was doing.”

Then she smiled, and looked up at the ceiling, and Bilbo supposed she must be reliving the memory. He was glad to see it a happy one. “Bungo turned around to see me walk in, and my goodness, he looked more frightened than I was. He had a handkerchief in his hands and I’m not sure he didn’t rip it to shreds, the poor boy. But he smiled at me, and pulled a funny face, and I started to laugh, and then I wasn’t frightened, not any more. I realised that everyone else really had been wrong, and we were right. Oh, it was a scandal! We could barely stop giggling long enough to make our declarations, and your Grandmother Baggins was so horrified I thought she might pop like a firework.”

“What was so funny, though?” asked Bilbo, trying to picture it. “Just that everyone else was wrong?”

“I suppose,” shrugged Mama. “That wasn’t all of it, though. We were laughing because we were happy, I think. Because we always did, when we were together. We still do.” 

She looked up then, her expression serious, and laid a hand over Bilbo’s. “There isn’t anyone yet who can make me laugh the way your Father does, and though of course he’s handsome and a good stable sort, that isn’t at all the best of him. He understands me, and I him, even if we are rather different Hobbits. That’s how I knew I was doing the right thing, Bilbo. Because I was marrying my very best friend.”

There was a charged pause as Bilbo considered his Mama’s words, the quiet hiss of the burning candle the loudest sound in the room.

“Mama,” he said slowly. “Are you telling me to marry Thorin?”

“No, darling,” said his Mama, laughing softly and patting his hand. “Although you could certainly do worse, and it seemed to make you happy last time you tried it. I hope you will marry someone of your own choosing, not mine. That’s what I wanted to tell you. Someone who makes you happier than anyone else in the world, and then everything in this book will begin to make sense, I promise. It’s an invaluable tome, as your Father no doubt told you, but just as love alone can rarely achieve everything, neither can knowledge. You need a good mix of ingredients to make your cake rise.”

Bilbo was reasonably certain the metaphor was not intended as a euphemism, but all the same it brought a degree of heat to his cheeks. “Thank you, Mama,” he said, since she seemed to have reached the end of her tale.

“That’s all right, darling. I’ll let you sleep now, shall I?”

“Yes,” agreed Bilbo, as she set the book down on his bedside table. He had rather too much to think about to do any more reading that night.

Bilbo blew out his candle as his mother closed the door behind her, and stared out into the dark of his room. 

Perhaps they didn’t quite understand one another always, but there was no-one Bilbo had ever met who was such good company as Thorin. He was a strange and exciting satyr and a comfortable, reliable friend all at once. He was very, very handsome too, if not much like a Hobbit, with his long velvet ears and two big horns, his backwards-bent legs and shining hooves. Still, he had gentle blue eyes and broad shoulders, and hair that blew like a dark banner in the wind. When he smiled it was like Overlithe morning and even when he sulked, there was something in the set of his bushy eyebrows that was somehow endearing. Bilbo swallowed hard, considering the matter properly at last.

Long ago they had been married, even if it had been only pretend, and there had been innocent little kisses and flower crowns. The thought made Bilbo blush. It had been a long, long time ago. There was really nothing to suggest Thorin might welcome any kisses now.

It would be nice, though, to kiss Thorin. It really would be nice, the thought becoming more and more appealing the longer Bilbo considered it. To kiss his nose, as Bilbo had once done so often, or somewhere new, like the little corner of his lip where Thorin’s moustache and beard had yet to meet. Perhaps even to kiss his mouth.

It seemed suddenly very possible that he, Bilbo Baggins, might be horribly in love with Thorin. 

The only question now was what on earth he should do about it.


	4. The Fell Winter

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> BE WARNED: THERE ARE SADS IN THIS CHAPTER. I'm so sorry. Don't hate me, there'll be a "Tweens & Satyrs: part II" in which I promise to fix things. 
> 
> I _promise._
> 
> This chapter was most brilliantly beta'd by the marvellous [H Savinien](http://archiveofourown.org/users/hsavinien). Thank you!!
> 
> [ETA] ARTS!!! ARTS!! [Ruto](http://rutobuka2.tumblr.com/) drew [sad boys in the rain and the snow](http://rutobuka2.tumblr.com/post/144676570889/the-first-half-of-the-drawings-i-made-for-the-4th), and then [windows and kisses!](http://rutobuka2.tumblr.com/post/144711801653/the-second-half-of-the-drawings-i-did-for-the-4th) WE ARE SO BLESSED YOU GUYS.

Summer left as if it had never been, and Winter seemed to follow hard on its heels. The weather broke in a week of thunderstorms, battering still-green leaves from the trees and rotting the meagre fruits from the inside even as they clung to the branches. The downpour was too heavy to properly nourish the parched earth, and the paths through the forest became slick, treacherous rivers of rock and silt. In the fields beyond, the rain beat down the thin, stunted crops and turned them to rotting sludge.

Meals became slim as Hobbits and Satyrs alike realised there would be little from this Harvest to tide them over until Spring. They would have to hope Winter was kind.

“Where the blazes was all this water when the farmers needed it, eh?” grumbled Bilbo, as he sat beside Thorin under a rocky overhang, caught once again in a shower. It was not quite enough shelter, and wet mud squeezed between the cleft of Thorin’s hooves unpleasantly, sticking in the feathers of his heels. 

“You said the bun mushrooms would like a little rain,” said Thorin.

“Ha!” snorted Bilbo. “Exactly that - penny buns like a little warm shower. By the time this lets up they’ll all have gone maggoty, and I’m not sure it’s worth the wetting to even look for them.”

That was a shame. To Thorin, no mushroom had ever tasted particularly different to another, but he knew these ones were special to Bilbo. In previous years they had skewered them on long twigs, dabbed them with a little butter and salt and toasted them over a little fire, and Bilbo’s rapturous glee on tasting them was always a thing worth seeing. Thorin had been looking forward to that, if nothing else. He pulled his ear, wondering what to suggest instead. 

Before he could come up with anything, Bilbo spoke. He was shuffling his broad toes in the mud and seemed unwilling to look Thorin in the eye.

“It doesn’t matter. There’s always next year, and anyway I’ve been wanting to speak to you about something. Something rather important,” he said, sounding unusually subdued.

Thorin waited patiently, until at length Bilbo looked up at the rain and laughed, just once, without much humour.

“All right then,” he said. “Um. Well perhaps it isn’t that important, not really. It only occurred to me that I haven’t said it lately. It’s just, Thorin, that you are my best friend.”

Bilbo turned then, looking Thorin in the eye with an expression of such anxious hope it squeezed at Thorin’s heart unbearably. “Thank you,” he said, hoping it was the correct response.

Bilbo shut his eyes, smiling and shaking his head. He twitched his nose in that wonderful gesture he never seemed quite aware he was making, and a lock of hair dripped on his cheek. It looked almost like a tear, and Thorin felt the urge to brush it away with his thumb. 

“You’re welcome,” sighed Bilbo. “And me, Thorin? Am I - could I be your best friend?”

Thorin was still staring at the not-tear on Bilbo’s cheek. He scratched at the base of his horns. The soft skin at the back just where they met his skull was tingling, almost like an itch or a tickle.

“Are you even listening?” asked Bilbo, noticing with a frown. “Have you got a flea?” 

Thorin’s hands dropped to his sides at once, and he scowled. “No.”

“I only asked.” Bilbo was looking at him expectantly, and to his horror Thorin realised there was a faint scent drifting from him, like hot milk with cinnamon, and new-mown hay, and the burned leaves of _raktmajâd_. It was a warm and intoxicating perfume that made his tail twitch of its own accord, and Thorin had smelled it before, though only once.

“Thorin? What’s the matter?” asked Bilbo. The shower was growing heavier by the moment, the sky darkening and the leaves that had floated on puddles now washing away past them in small surging eddies of muddy water. A peal of thunder sounded in the distance.

Thorin scowled. “It is but Wedmath, and you are downwind!”

Bilbo stared at him in confusion. “What has that to do with anything? Can’t you answer my question?”

“I...” Thorin stared at him, unable to form any sort of useful reply, though he knew he could not continue to lie by omission in this cowardly way. “No. You are not my best friend. You are something quite different, Bilbo Baggins.”

Bilbo lurched backward, his feelings clearly hurt. “Because I’m a Hobbit?”

“Because you are Bilbo,” said Thorin. Even to confess that much seemed to provoke a wave of scent, stronger and deeper, that crashed over Thorin like a wave.

“And your best friend is Dwalin, of course.” Bilbo sounded distinctly bitter, and Thorin gritted his teeth, attempting to concentrate until he could make himself clear, despite the thudding pulse now sounding in his head.

“Dwalin is like a brother to me. I do not feel that way about you. I cannot,” said Thorin, and Bilbo jumped to his feet, stamping out of their shelter with no mind for the torrential rain. Within moments he was soaked to the skin, and the shift and play of his flesh under wet linen was no more conducive to sensible thought than it had ever been. Thorin racked his fuddled brain, trying to find better words.

“So I understand,” snapped Bilbo, buckling up his backpack once more. “Fine. Do you know, I think I might go home. And I didn’t mention it before, but I may be busy on Mersday and Highday, so I shan’t be able to come again until next week.”

Thorin scrambled up at that, following Bilbo into the downpour in dismay. 

He caught Bilbo’s arm, unwittingly hauling him up to stand too quickly so that the Hobbit stumbled on the slippery ground and landed with a thud against Thorin’s chest, the fall pressing him tightly to Thorin’s body. The warm, delicious smell of Bilbo was all around, hanging thick in the sodden air, and his cheeks were reddened, his breath short with anger and his lips already wet and shining. The pounding in Thorin’s head was louder than the rain, and he needed most of all to crush Bilbo against him, to taste his rain-damp skin and mouth and more, much more, that could not be, not quite yet, though perhaps if Thorin could explain himself...

“What are you doing? Thorin, let go of me!” exclaimed Bilbo, and Thorin obeyed in horror, aghast at his crumbling control.

“You should go home,” he said, turning away and squeezing his eyes shut. “Go home!”

“I’m going!” shouted Bilbo furiously. “Of my own accord, I might add!”

“Do not come back next week,” said Thorin hastily, his hands forming fists against the desire to seize Bilbo once more and keep him there. “Do not come back until after. Two Sterdays before Yule, as we always have.” 

There was a brief silence, broken only by the rainfall. “That’s four months away,” said Bilbo, sounding less angry now. “It isn’t Leaf-Fall yet, it can’t be.” 

“It is early this year,” growled Thorin, refusing to be moved the hurt in Bilbo’s voice. He could not, it was not in him to resist if he opened his eyes now. He heard Bilbo snort, or perhaps sniffle.

“What rubbish. I can’t get the least bit of sense out of you today, Thorin. Very well then, we shan’t meet until two Sterdays before Yule, as usual.”

Thorin listened until the Hobbit’s loud, squelching footsteps died away. Then he lay down quietly on the cold, wet dirt and groaned.

\-- 

He returned home late, filthy, frustrated and in a thoroughly foul mood. It did not improve when Amad caught him by the horns in the courtyard and bellowed at Frerin to bring water. She peeled the damp, muddied scarf from Thorin’s throat and dropped it to the floor where it landed with a heavy splat, before dousing him repeatedly in ice-cold water like an infant. His nadad watched Thorin’s struggles with glee, scurrying back and forth with refilled buckets and seeming disappointed when Amad finally deemed Thorin clean enough to enter the caves.

Still dripping, he gathered up his soggy muffler again and stamped his way to the communal chambers. It was where the largest firepit burned, and he found Dwalin already beside it, whittling some piece of bone.

“Who’s pissed in your dinner?” asked Dwalin, looking him over.

“I’ll piss in yours,” snarled Thorin, dropping down at Dwalin’s side, knowing his friend would not take offence.

Dwalin shrugged. “Make no difference, the shite we’re eating lately. Can’t wonder that everyone’s so riled.”

The fire was high, blazing hot enough to begin drying Thorin’s skin, and he wrung out his hair over his lap, where it added to the shallow puddle forming beneath his haunches. Dwalin threw across a tanned deerskin, and Thorin caught it with grunted thanks. He spread it out to lie upon, softer and warmer than the stone, and began to feel a little less forlorn. 

“Who’s everyone?” he asked, sorry for having snapped.

“The lot of them,” said Dwalin. “Oin and the other healers are arguing about portents again.” 

Thorin snorted, rolling onto his back, the rough hair of the deerskin a pleasing scratch against his shoulders. He wriggled into it, not particularly concerned. Every year, at some point, one or other of the seven healers would read the portents and decide it was time to leave. Nothing had ever come of it yet.

More troublesome was the discovery that Bilbo could affect him so strongly so early in the season. It should not have been possible. The approach of Leaf-Fall in the air was too slight to discern without concentrated effort, and yet Bilbo’s scent had been almost overwhelming. It might be something to do with being a Hobbit, or having an incomplete bond. More likely, it could be the fact that Bilbo was so much more wonderful and bewitching than any Satyr Thorin had ever encountered.

Whatever the explanation, Thorin had no idea how to prevent it. If his bond with Bilbo was going to start pushing at him from so early in the year, it might creep ever earlier. What if he was unable to see his friend for half a year at a time? Or at all? He sighed, and rolled over on the deerskin, gazing at the soggy pile of his beloved scarf. He could not imagine such misery.

\--

The first snows came in Winterfilth, and fell heavily, in wild blizzards that stuck from the first. Thorin had never seen it so thick. Before long the snow was deep and dangerous enough that Amad forbade anyone from venturing more than a furlong from their homes, and the youngest were kept to the caves. Frerin was one of these, though he chafed incessantly against the restriction.

“It’s all right for you,” he whined over dinner. “You go out, I’m locked up in here with the babies.”

Thorin viewed his bowl with distaste. Simmering the _danak’urm_ in snowmelt made for a souplike stew that Amad promised them was highly nutritious, but there could be no doubt it tasted like boiled worms. He thought longingly of sugar-buns and shortbread and hot mugs of cocoa.

“I may as well be,” he said. Yule was fast approaching and his usual meeting place with Bilbo was far more than a furlong distant.

Frerin sneered. “You’re pining for your fat-footed little man, I heard Dwalin say it. I think you love him. You want to bond with him. You’ll end up wearing britches and waistcoats and look even more like a twat that you do in that idiotic muffler.”

“Dwalin talks out of his arse,” snarled Thorin, furious to have his secret exposed. He could hardly explain that the bond was already half-formed, and threatening to destroy Thorin’s dearest friendship. 

Instead he threw down his bowl as Frerin began to make exaggerated kissing noises, ignoring Amad’s chiding, and retreated to the common chambers. He considered punching Dwalin in the face, but dismissed the idea. Frerin would only crow the louder, and Thorin would be punished, and besides, the long dull days indoors had led to enough fights already. 

It was cold everywhere in the caves, though the fires were now kept lit constantly, cold enough that even the hardy Satyrs could feel it. Soon all had retreated to the communal chambers as days and nights were spent huddling close for warmth, and tempers were more easily lit than the damp sticks they collected from the woods. There was no time to let it season, and scarcely enough to dry it. It had to be stacked inside the caves, close to the fire, and it hissed with snowmelt, making the air thick and clammy, so that the fire belched smoke and stank.

Oin had grumbled that such air would carry pestilence. Sure enough, the youngest and eldest began to fall sick, and the sound of coughing filled the long, dark days. More of the healers began to counsel Amad to leave Bindbale, and for the first time, Thorin saw her seem to consider it.

Yule drew closer yet. Thorin had taken to keeping a scratched calendar on the wall of his cave, and soon enough came the eve of that Sterday when he had promised to meet Bilbo again. He yearned to simply ask Amad for permission to go, but knew there was no possibility of it being given, and could not risk the chance that she would forbid him to leave entirely.

That evening he volunteered to watch the fire, taking the penultimate watch of the night, carefully feeding the embers with sticks and considering his plan. When the time came to wake Dwalin, he did so with care.

“Mmph? What’s happened?” mumbled his friend. Dwalin blinked awake in confusion, unaccustomed to such a gentle rousing.

“I am going,” whispered Thorin, knotting two legs of his deerskin over his shoulders and rising to his feet before Dwalin could fully wake. “I will be back before nightfall. Tell no-one.”

“What?” hissed Dwalin, sitting up suddenly and clearly furious, but loyal enough not to raise his voice. “Thorin, you bloody bastard, you can’t!”

“I must,” said Thorin, and crept from the caves as quietly as he could. No-one woke, though he could not help his cautious footfalls clicking softly against the stone. 

It was not until he emerged into the dingy light of morning that the world became truly silent about him. The wind had dropped, and the bright snow fell without a sound. It felt as if his ears had been stuffed. 

It was like a scene engraved on stone, all colour drained from the world into black branches, a grey sky growing slowly lighter, and the endless snow all around. Nothing moved but Thorin’s breath clouding the air before him, and it could have been beautiful if it had not been so deadly. Pulling his deerskin close about himself, Thorin set off through snow soon high enough to reach his waist.

Within an hour he was forced to recognise that he could no longer take his usual path. The snow had banked so deeply in hollows that he sank up to his chin in places, and he knew the route well enough to guess that what lay ahead would be worse. He would have to find his way through the inner forest, where the drifts were not so dense. It was a long business, with several false starts, and Thorin cursed his wretched sense of direction. Surely he could find his way through woods he had roamed for the better part of decade? But the stone beneath was hidden too deeply to sense, and all the landmarks he knew had been transformed by a layer of white.

The wind picked up once more, driving snow into Thorin’s face, so that he had to squint. A sweet perfume reached his nose, and for a moment he panicked, afraid it might be Bilbo’s scent, but he sniffed again, and realised it was only sugar buns. Delicious, but far more easily resisted.

Ahead appeared a blob of colour at last, and Thorin broke into a gallop as best he could. He knew, had always known, that Bilbo would come to meet him, foolish though it was in this weather. Bilbo sat huddled against a tree, wrapped in so many layers of coat, hat and muffler that only his tightly-closed eyes could be seen. Upon his feet were crudely-stitched brown boots that made them look even larger than usual, but Thorin barely noticed. Bilbo was shaking as if in a fit.

“Bilbo?” he asked, holding his hands out as he approached, and the Hobbit’s head jerked up at once, wild-eyed and startled. 

“Th-thorin!” he stammered. “I th-thought you weren’t c-coming, oh, Thorin, you’re here!”

Thorin snatched Bilbo up into his arms instinctively, curling himself around the Hobbit close to warm him as he shuddered uncontrollably. Bilbo pressed his face gratefully to Thorin’s chest, rubbing his face against the hair with soft groaning noises, his nose like a lump of ice. “I had a d-dream like this once,” mumbled Bilbo. “It was m-much nicer in the dream. Thorin, I’m s-so cold.”

“You should not have come!” said Thorin, distressed, clutching Bilbo closely and rocking him like an infant. “Why did you come? You should have stayed home!”

“Well, if s-somebody hadn’t b-been so late!” huffed Bilbo, looking up and trying to smile. His lips had a bluish tinge that gave Thorin such pain that he could not find words to explain himself. Bilbo heaved a deep, trembling sigh, snuggling into Thorin’s warmth, fitting so neatly against Thorin’s body it was as if he had been made for that place.

“And, you know, we didn’t part on very good t-terms,” he said. His shivering was beginning to calm, at last, as Thorin held him close. “I need to say sorry. I’ve missed you so much, and I was being so silly. I wanted to tell you something and I was too much of a coward.”

“You are never a coward,” said Thorin vehemently. Foolhardly would be more accurate, though he did not say that.

“I am, though,” sighed Bilbo. “I need to just tell you.”

“Wolves,” said Thorin, abruptly frozen in place.

“What?” Bilbo shook his head, looking confused.

“Wolves,” said Thorin again, sniffing the air. There had been wolf attacks in his early childhood, before they came to the Shire. It was not a scent easily forgotten, and though it was faint, it was growing stronger. It came from up ahead, towards the river. They must have smelled the food Bilbo carried, he realised, and that meant the pack would be coming for them.

“There are no wolves in the Shire,” said Bilbo. “They don’t cross the Brandywine.”

“The Baranduin is frozen,” said Thorin grimly, and whirled about, Bilbo still clutched tightly to his chest. There was a thrashing, crashing sound in the bushes behind them, and for a moment he thought they must be surrounded.

It was Balin who emerged, twigs in his beard and scratches up and down his arms, red-faced and short of breath.

“Thorin!” he bellowed. “What madness is this? There are wolves in the woods, you...” he trailed off, staring in horror at the Hobbit in Thorin’s arms. “Ah, Durin help us.”

A lone howl rose through the air. Thorin met Balin’s eyes, and the agreement passed unspoken between them as more wolves joined in. 

“Take him home,” said Thorin, setting Bilbo swiftly back on his feet. “Balin will keep you safe, Bilbo.”

“What?” Bilbo looked confused and terrified, but he didn’t move. “What about you? Who’s keeping you safe?”

“Follow Balin,” insisted Thorin, the smell of the wolves filling the air. He grabbed the end of a thick branch protruding from the snow, breaking it off at a suitable length, and swung it a few times to test its weight. “Leave the food.”

“Leave the…? As if that mattered, Thorin!” spluttered Bilbo, still unmoving.

“They will smell it,” said Thorin, dropping down into a crouch. The branch was heavy, but it would make a weapon. The wolves were coming from the South-East. He could hear their footfalls now, crunching in the snow.

“Ah, I’m too old for this,” Balin grumbled, exasperated, stepping forward to throw Bilbo across his shoulder like a deer carcass. He set off at a canter, barely out of sight before the first wolf bounded into the clearing.

It was a lean, desperate animal, scrawny and weak with hunger but maddened by the food it smelled. It leapt for Thorin wildly, without hesitation, and Thorin swung. 

The branch connected with the wolf’s jaw, shattering both and flinging the beast sideways into a tree. Twitching, its body slumped down against the trunk and a pool of shocking red began to spread beneath it. One dead.

The next two came at once, and though Thorin blocked one with the remaining stump of branch between its jaws, the other’s claws scraped down his back as he wrenched the wood sharply sideways, snapping the first wolf’s neck. Bellowing with pain, Thorin twisted around to catch the second beast’s jaws in each hand, just as its teeth prepared to sink into his shoulder. He pulled hard, and the wolf’s head split apart in a shower of blood.

From then, he hardly recalled how many came, or how he killed them. His back throbbed, the wound pulling and deepening with each blow he struck, but the madness of battle filled him and he was unstoppable in his fury. A singing rose in his ears, and he could not let a single one survive or escape, for then they might go after Bilbo, and Thorin would not allow that. Bilbo would not be touched by these monsters. 

Thorin whirled about once more, ready for the next attack, but none came. 

He stood panting at the clearing’s edge, blinking sweat from his lashes, and saw half a dozen dead wolves about him, spread over snow no longer white but churned with filth. Their hot blood and ripped entrails steamed in the cold air, and Thorin’s own breath hung in a fog before him. There would be more coming, surely, with the smell of blood so strong on the air, and the pale sun was past noon, dropping quickly. He could not linger.

Thorin scooped a handful of snow and rubbed his face briefly clean, the chill barely registering against his inflamed skin. He shouldered Bilbo’s backpack and set off home the way he had come. Balin would keep Bilbo safe. Thorin wondered, then, what Bilbo had wanted to tell him. It would have to wait now.

It was slower going as the exhilaration of fighting began to fade from his limbs, and the injury to his back hurt more with each step. Balin had caught back up with him before he reached the mouth of the caves, though just barely.

“Master Baggins is home safe, Thorin. What possessed you both to go out in all this?”

“We agreed to meet before the snow came,” said Thorin, through gritted teeth. He did not miss the quiet reproach in Balin’s tone. “If I had not gone, what then? What would have become of him?”

“Aye, well. There is that,” conceded Balin ruefully. “I have told him to wait home until the snow melts, however. I hope you will agree that was the wisest course of action. Let’s get you to Oin and clean out these wounds.”

Thorin nodded, following Balin now. At they approached the Healers’ chambers, voices echoed off the stone, one of them Amad’s.

“We cannot survive a journey in this weather!” she was saying, her expression incredulous. “We have invalids, elderly, kids! You have misread the signs. It cannot be done.”

“It must be done!” growled Lóni, one of the most senior Healers. “If we have sickness among us, it is because the portents have spoken, and we have not listened. These past two months I’ve been telling you, Frís!”

“These past ten years, Lóni!” exclaimed Amad. She seemed about to say more, but stopped at the sight presented by Thorin and Balin. 

All eyes in the chamber were upon them, and Thorin felt his heart sink at what trouble he would be in now. It seemed almost a blessing to have so little energy left to care about it. Oin hustled him swiftly onto a stool and procured a bowl of water and a washcloth seemingly from nowhere, tutting as he began to clean the crusted blood and dirt from Thorin’s skin.

“What happened?” Amad stood before him, arms folded. Her voice was not loud, but the anger in it was so clear it had no need to be.

“Ah,” said Balin quickly, from across the room, where another Healer was dabbing at his thorn-scratches with yellow salve. “I can explain. You see, Thorin and the Hobbit lad meet every year at this time, and neither one could send a message to the other to cancel it. Nobody’s fault after all.”

Amad snorted and peered over Thorin’s shoulder, examining the scratches on his back. “These marks were not made by any Hobbit,” she said. “Give me that.”

She held out a hand to Oin, who meekly passed her the bowl of greenish paste he had prepared for Thorin’s wounds. Instead it was Amad who stalked around behind him, slapping the first cold dollop of the stuff onto his skin.

“Wolves,” he said, wincing as the ointment was rubbed into split flesh. He heard the intakes of breath around him, and Amad’s hand paused, mid-smear.

“Wolves,” repeated Amad, almost in a whisper.

“I’m afraid so, My Lady,” said Balin, bowing his head. A small bandage had been tied about his right forearm, but otherwise he was unscathed, and trotted forward to speak with Amad quite as if Thorin were not there. “It is as we feared.”

The hand on Thorin’s back began to move again, rubbing more gently now. “If we leave, they will hunt us,” said Amad casually.

“They will hunt us if we stay,” shrugged Balin.

“Like trapped coneys. True enough,” she agreed, slowly and carefully dabbing ointment across Thorin’s endless cuts and bruises, and though it had stung at first before long it began to numb the pain. All present had fallen silent, watching her, waiting until the task was done. Thorin felt himself grow drowsy under her hands, and was almost dozing by the time she spoke again. “You think we should leave, then, Balin?”

“I do,” said Balin simply, and Thorin flinched awake.

Amad sighed, bowing her head as she set down the emptied bowl. “Very well. Lóni, we will take your advice. It is time for us to leave.”

“No!” cried Thorin, before he could control the impulse.

“Enough,” Amad said, her voice low. Chastened, Thorin held his tongue. “Oin, does my son need anything more of you?”

Oin shook his head. “Then you are dismissed,” she said.

The Healers muttered amongst themselves, surprised to be sent from their own rooms. The set of Amad’s mood at present was not one to be tested, however, and Thorin was not the only one who saw it. Grumbling, they grabbed a few trifles here and there as they began to shuffle out.

Oin paused, turning back in the doorway once Lóni, the first to leave, had vanished around the corner. “My Lady Frís,” he said desperately, “I disagree...” 

“Dismissed!” roared Amad furiously, rounding upon him with flashing eyes. “All of you! I will speak with my son alone!”

There was a clatter of hooves at that, the room emptying swiftly. His Amad crossed the room to a stone jar, and withdrew a long strap of dried meat from it, handing it to Thorin with a small smile. It felt like months since he had eaten real meat, and he took it gladly, confused that he was not being punished for his disrespect.

“Do you know why we have stayed here so long?” she asked, watching him chew on his treat, and Thorin blinked at her. Now that she asked the question directly, he could not be sure he did. 

“When Dís was born, and our line was assured at last, your Adad went on ahead,” said Amad, sitting down beside her son. “We were safe enough here until he could find us a true home.”

Thorin nodded; he remembered it, though dimly. They had halted their journey when Amad’s birth pains began, and taken temporary shelter in the Bindbale caves, damp and mouldering as they had been. There had been great rejoicing when the baby was a girl, a female heir at last, and Thorin had been fetched to meet his new namad. He remembered how red her little scrunched face had been, and how long her ears had looked against the downy fluff of her hair.

It was only hours after that that his Adad and a few of their best warriors had set off again, without the rest of them. Thorin had understood that he would not be gone forever. Thrain would come back again, or send word for them to follow. Even at the time there had been whispers that such an impatient fervour seemed irrational, but Thorin had never paid those any mind. There was enough to do clearing the caves and making them fit to live in, finding food and helping Amad take care of Frerin and little Dís.

“I don’t think he will come back to us, Thorin,” said Amad sadly, looking more weary than he had ever seen her. “Not after all this time. We don’t have to keep waiting here.”

Thorin chewed his dried meat and swallowed, though he barely tasted it. He had not been waiting, not exactly, though perhaps he should not admit that to Amad. Bindbale Woods had become home to him. For ten years they had lived safely beside the Hobbits. If there were a better place, would not Adad have returned and told them? 

“This Winter is half-done already, Spring will come again,” said Thorin. “And if things grow worse, we can ask the Hobbits for aid. They will help us.”

“Then they will starve alongside us. We cannot ask them for aid,” said Amad, shaking her head. “These lands are spent. I know it is hard, Thorin, but I must follow the portents, as my Amad did before me, and hers before her. I’ve waited too long already.”

“But,” he began, despairing, knowing that he should not protest further. Amad simply stood, cutting off his words without having to scold him. She laid her broad, warm hand upon his head for a moment, and walked away.

“You should rest, tonight. Tomorrow we must begin preparations, and we leave within the week.”

In the doorway she paused, her ears flicking thoughtfully, and the little stone beads in her earrings made a soft sound in the quiet. “I will need you to help with packing and so forth, but if you work quickly, I think you may bid goodbye to your Hobbit before we go.”

\---

Three days, it took, to gather up food, prepare medicines, parcel up burdens for each of their people, and decide what must be left behind. At the end of the third day, Thorin went to his Amad, and did not even need to ask his question before she wrapped him in a warm hug and pressed her forehead to his.

“I am proud of you, Thorin. Go to your Hobbit and bid him goodbye, if you must, but remember we leave in the morning,” she said, handing him her own sharp stone knife. “Take the most open paths you can find and if you hear wolves, turn back. Do not give me cause to regret this.”

Thorin ran. To Hobbiton and back before morning would be no small feat, but he could not let down his Amad or Bilbo, so he ran, breathing steadily and thinking of nothing but placing one hoof before the other, as swift and sure as he could do it. The tree above Bag End stood skeletal against the sky, black branches like claws reaching for the stars, and Thorin paused, catching his breath, before circling around the back of the smial and over the hill, dropping down silently before Bilbo’s bedroom window. The curtains were drawn, so he could not see in, but he rapped very quietly on the glass and waited until he could hear signs of movement.

When a hand appeared to work the catch, he ducked behind a bush, just in case he had tapped on the wrong window after all. Thorin watched carefully as the casement swung open and a familiar, beloved curly head poked out.

“Bilbo,” he said, so glad to see him that it came out louder than he had meant, and Bilbo’s head whipped around at once.

“Thorin? What on earth are you doing? It must be past midnight, and Balin said I wouldn’t see you ‘till Spring!” Bilbo’s eyes were alight with excitement and his smile was wide. “Not that I’m complaining, of course. Why are you here?”

Thorin stowed his knife safely under the bush and crept closer, leaning in through the window. “May I come in?” he asked, and Bilbo laughed, stepping back as Thorin clambered ungainly through the small round gap, closing the curtains again behind him to keep the chill night outside. 

Bilbo’s room was cosy and familiar, and Thorin looked about, committing it to his memory. There was a thick, pale rug on the floor, and on the bed lay the golden-brown quilt Bilbo’s Mama had made, amongst sheets and blankets that were rumpled from his getting out of it. On the nightstand a flickering candle sat in a brass holder with a leaf-shaped handle, a packet of matches beside it, one burned and now blown out. Beside it was a book with some gilded lettering Thorin could not make out. 

Bilbo shivered a little as he stood before Thorin in his nightshirt, its buttons undone almost halfway down his chest, and while that was a pretty sight, it would not help Thorin deliver his message.

“Your buttons,” said Thorin, and Bilbo looked down in confusion. 

“Oh, sorry,” he said, fastening them absently. “They rub open if I’ve been wriggling in bed.”

The image that rose then in Thorin’s mind did not help either. He frowned, determined to speak quickly. “We are leaving,” he said.

“Are we?” asked Bilbo. “What, now? Where to? What should I pack?”

“No,” said Thorin, though it pained him. “Not you. I and my people. It is time for us to move on, they say. The portents.”

Thorin watched as all the light seemed to go out of Bilbo, his smile fading and his eyes growing wide with something like terror. “You can’t,” he said simply.

“I must,” said Thorin. “Amad and the Healers have spoken. It is time, and we must go.”

“No, you can’t,” insisted Bilbo, suddenly fierce, his fists clenched at his sides. “I won’t let you. You can stay here, there’s another bedroom off the West Hall, or a back room if you don’t want windows, but you can’t just go.”

Thorin stared down at his hooves. “I will be needed,” he said, and it was true. He was young and strong, and the journey would be hard, and there would be young ones and the elderly and the sick to take care of. More than that, Amad and Frerin and little Dis needed him. He could not abandon any of them.

“Then, then I’m coming too,” said Bilbo. “Let me dress.”

Bilbo got as far as pulling some britches from a drawer while Thorin watched, a warring hope inside his breast that wanted desperately to agree, and keep Bilbo with him. 

“No,” said Thorin hoarsely. He could not. He could not take Bilbo from his warm, cosy home, his home-cooked food and loving parents, and give him scavenged meals in cold caves instead. He would not make Bilbo a nomad, eating boiled worms and wrapped in deerskins. It was not right, it could not be done.

“I want to,” said Bilbo stubbornly. In the middle of his dim, candlelit room he stood with one leg in his britches, swallowing hard and blinking. “I want to,” he said again, his voice wobbling, and then all at once he was weeping. The britches were dropped, and Bilbo, who never cried, raised a fist to his mouth to stifle great shuddering sobs that did not stop. 

There were no words that could have helped, or not any that Thorin could manage. Instead he reached out, and Bilbo stumbled towards him, catching a foot in the leg of his britches to fall against Thorin’s shoulder.

“I am sorry,” said Thorin. Tentatively he patted Bilbo’s back, trying to smother a tiny, selfish spark of joy at holding him.

“Nuts to sorry!” said Bilbo savagely, hiccuping through his tears. “I don’t want you sorry, I want you to stay! If you must go, why now of all the idiotic times? It’s the middle of winter, and there’s more snow every day, you must all be mad as March Hares!”

Thorin could hardly deny it. “I will come back,” he promised.

“What if you don’t?” snapped Bilbo, lifting his head to glare. “What if you die? I saw you, over Balin’s shoulder, when he was toting me home like a sack of spuds! I saw you fighting those wolves!”

“And you see me now,” said Thorin, catching Bilbo’s little hands in his own, and pressing them to his heart. “No wolf nor any other thing will keep me from returning, you have my vow. My people always keep our vows, you know that. I will come back.”

Bilbo’s glare seemed to soften just a fraction at that. “Always,” he sniffed disbelievingly. “Is that so.”

“Always,” repeated Thorin, remembering a vow made the day he met Bilbo. He had not broken it, nor ever would, whatever anyone else might believe. With all his heart he would keep this vow too, and felt the truth of it like a fire within him as they stood together in silence for a long moment. 

“When will you come back?” asked Bilbo stubbornly, leaning back to pick some speck of dust from Thorin’s scarf, refusing to look him in the eye. The room was growing just faintly lighter now, and Thorin glanced across at the window to see the rosy beginnings of dawn tracing the horizon. 

“I don’t know,” said Thorin. “Only that I will. Bilbo, I cannot linger, I came only to tell you. I had to say goodbye.”

Bilbo sighed, his face still twisting with angry sorrow, and nodded. “Goodbye, then.”

“Goodbye, Bilbo,” said Thorin. 

He detached himself slowly, crossing again to the window. It was easier to squirm his way through from this side, and Thorin landed lightly on his hooves, stepping out into the cold air. Before him lay the snowy landscape glowing with pale blues and purples as the sun began to rise.

“Thorin,” called Bilbo, and Thorin turned to see his friend leaning far out of the window. In the pale, cold light Bilbo looked almost unearthly, his eyes unreadable.

“What is it?” asked Thorin, stepping nearer when Bilbo did not speak again, instead opening and shutting his mouth though no words emerged. Thorin stooped down, trying to understand Bilbo’s strange, determined expression.

Small, warm hands seized his hair, tugging him in close, and before he could protest, Thorin was being kissed. Bilbo was kissing him, pressing his mouth against Thorin’s so hard his teeth hurt, yanking on his hair, and it was beautiful and wonderful, the most perfect moment of Thorin’s whole life. 

Bilbo drew back, looking flustered. “Sorry,” he said. “I’m sorry, I only, I shouldn’t have...”

This time Thorin caught Bilbo’s face in his hands, remembering just in time how gently he must hold his friend. Bilbo looked startled, and then grinned, craning forward again until their mouths met more softly this time. A faint smell of clean sweat clung under the curls of Bilbo’s hair, a fainter-still sourness on his breath from sleep, the soft skin of his jaw under Thorin’s hands was a wonder, and his warm lips pushed willingly against Thorin’s. It was even more perfect than the first kiss. It hurt less as well.

Thorin did not dare move, or want to move, and their kiss did not break until Bilbo began laughing. “Your moustache hairs are bristly, one of them poked up my nose,” he said, rubbing the place as he leaned away, and Thorin laughed with him, reeling with pure joy. 

“I didn’t mean to,” he said, and Bilbo closed his eyes, shaking his head for silence. His arms had slid around Thorin’s shoulders as they kissed, and he put them back there, pressing his forehead to Thorin’s.

“Thorin,” he said, in barely more than a whisper, and it was as if Thorin’s name had been made only to be spoken by Bilbo, in that voice, with such warmth and yearning. “Thorin. Do you really have to go?”

Bilbo had kissed him, wanted to kiss him, might even love him, and yet it was true. Thorin had to leave. It was hard, all at once, to know whether he sat upon a sunlit cloud or beneath a black rock. 

“I do,” he said, and Bilbo heaved a great sigh.

“Well. Get going then, or you’ll be in trouble. And come back. To me, Thorin. Come back to me.” He spoke fiercely, as if he did not want to cry again.

“I will,” said Thorin, bowing his head. 

It was time. With the imprint Bilbo’s kiss still burning on his lips, he retrieved Amad’s knife from the bush and scrambled down the snowy bank, past the garden bench, over the fence, down Bagshot Row and away.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, they kissed! Everyone's happy now, right??
> 
> /runs and hides


End file.
